The Love Letter I Should've Thrown Away novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Pinned

The video hits nine thousand views and Brady files a conduct complaint that suspends her from the library, then offers to drop it for a public apology; a note in the handwriting of her original letter waits under her door.

By morning the video had nine thousand views, and the comments had decided I was a stalker.

"She followed him to class with a fake letter."

"Imagine being that obsessed."

"Brady deserves so much better, someone check on him."

I read them sitting on my bed in yesterday's cardigan, until Kendra took the phone out of my hand and put a plate of toast there instead.

"Stop reading," she said. "Eat."

"You liked his post."

She sat down on the edge of my bed.

"I did. I'm sorry, I should have told you before you saw it."

She looked right at me while she said it.

"He's student president, Cor. He signs off on housing swaps. If I'd commented what I wanted to say, we'd both be living in the basement dorm by Friday."

"So you liked it."

"So I liked it, and then I went to bed and stared at the ceiling." She pushed the toast closer. "I'm on your side. I'll say it anywhere you want."

I ate the toast.

It was the first thing I'd eaten since the sandwich joke.

At eight, my phone buzzed with an email from the head of Pell Library.

I read it standing up.

Brady had filed a conduct complaint against me overnight.

It said I had harassed him, followed him into a classroom, and made threats.

Until the hearing, I was suspended from the night desk.

"He can't do that," Kendra said, reading over my shoulder.

"He just did."

"I'll go with you to the office."

"I'm going alone. You have class."

She hugged me hard at the door and said, "Text me the second you know anything."

The Student Conduct office was on the ground floor of Brook Hall, down the hall from the room where I'd ended it.

A woman at the front desk found my file and turned her screen away from me.

"Your scholarship has a conduct clause," she said. "You signed it freshman year."

"I know."

"A finding of harassment means probation. Probation means the scholarship is reviewed."

"Reviewed by who?"

"The financial aid committee." She hesitated. "The chair is a trustee."

"Which trustee?"

She looked at the name on the complaint, then at me, and didn't answer.

I knew anyway.

Brady's father had given the university a new gymnasium, and the sign over its door still had his name.

Outside, the quad was full of people who knew my face.

A boy I had never met held his phone up as I passed, and a girl laughed and pulled his arm down.

I walked to the library because I had nowhere else to be.

The doors were open, and I stood in the entrance with my lanyard in my hand, and the day desk student didn't meet my eye.

My phone buzzed.

It was a voice memo from Brady.

I stood in the stacks near the third window and played it with the volume low.

"Hey, Cor. Look, I think we both said things last night. Here's what I'm going to do. You post one short apology, say you were confused and overwhelmed, and I'll pull the complaint."

There was a pause, and I heard him turn a page of something, or tap a pen.

"You keep your scholarship. Your mom doesn't have to hear about any of it. That's more than fair. Think about it, babe."

My mother cleaned offices at night and wore the same coat in all weather.

She had cried on the phone when I got the scholarship.

I deleted the memo and then I took it out of the trash and played it again, because he had called me babe and threatened her in one breath, and I wanted to be sure I'd heard it.

I had.

I went home at four.

Kendra's door was shut, and her light was off.

Under mine, someone had slid a folded sheet of paper.

I picked it up and read it standing on the threshold.

Bring the original to the third window tonight, after the library closes. Come alone. Please don't show it to anyone first.

It was written in blue ink, in a narrow, slanted hand.

My hands were shaking when I took the letter out of my wallet and unfolded it beside the note.

The lowercase letters leaned the same way.

The tall loop on the lowercase l was the same.

I had never seen that handwriting anywhere but on the one page I'd carried for two years.

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