Chapter 16: Is He Pathetic?

On Tuesday I dropped my pen in AP Lit, and Eliot picked it up.

It was the fourth time this year, and I didn't know yet that he was counting.

The bell rang.

The room emptied around us, and our teacher gathered her papers and said, "Lock up when you're done, you two," and left.

I stayed in my seat, facing the front.

Eliot stayed in his, behind me.

We had not spoken since the gym door, and the last words between us had been mine.

"I have something for you," he said. "It's not an apology."

He hesitated. "I mean, there's one in it. But I'd like to hand it over first."

I turned around.

He took a sheet of paper out of his notebook and unfolded it with ink-stained fingers.

It had been folded and unfolded so many times that the creases had gone soft.

The top said Letter to the Editor, and under that, December ninth.

"I wrote it for the Ledger," he said. "I never printed it. I never signed it."

I took it.

It was three paragraphs.

It was addressed to the person who ran the page.

I read the first line twice.

It said: I think I know who you are, and I think you should know that one of your readers has never wanted to hurt you.

"You wrote this before New Year's Eve," I said.

"Three weeks before."

"You knew I ran it?"

"I guessed in October. Everyone argued about who ran it, and you were the only one who never had a theory."

I looked at him.

His ears had gone red.

Keep reading free with an account. Start His Jealousy Sent Me Straight to the Ivy League from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.