Chapter 12: The Torn Edge

I held the letter under the lamp with both hands.

The edge was too straight to be torn.

Someone had cut it with scissors, right along a ruler's line, and the page beneath the last sentence was gone.

"It was there," Micah said behind me.

He had pulled on his shirt without buttoning it, and his voice was thin.

"I know you believe it."

"I wrote the last line and signed it under that. A J, and a small dash under the J, the way I sign everything."

"Then somebody took it off."

"Who?"

"Brady had it at the mixer. He stood on a table with it."

"I put it in your mailbox on Friday morning," Micah said.

"I know."

"By Friday night he was on that table. When did you get it, Cora?"

I opened my mouth.

I had never asked myself.

At the mixer Brady had held it up and read the first line out loud.

I had cried so hard I never took it in.

I had gotten it from his hand.

I had never seen it in my mailbox.

"Our mail was a shared box," I said slowly. "Freshman year. We were assigned one slot for the room."

"Who picked it up?"

"Kendra. She walked past the mailroom every day. She always brought it up and put mine on my bed."

The room was very quiet.

Micah didn't say anything, and I loved him for that.

"It doesn't mean anything," I said. "Anyone could have opened it."

"Maybe."

"She was my best friend. She held my hair back the first time I threw up from drinking."

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