The Diary That Held the Votes Against Me novel · Chapter 8 of 24
Chapter 8: Thirty-One Letters
I found Rafe in his garage that night, rebuilding a carburetor on a workbench that smelled of oil and cold coffee.
He looked up when I came in, and he put the wrench down.
"You've got a face," he said.
"The first week of term," I said. "You asked the whole cohort to write something kind about me in the diary."
He went still.
"Who told you?"
"You said you first saw it Thursday night."
"I said I first read the tally Thursday night."
"That's not what you said."
"That's what I meant."
"Rafe."
He wiped his hands on a rag, slowly.
"I knew about the diary because Delaney told me about it," he said. "Last spring. She'd just been made steward for the new class, and she was proud of it. She talked about the Thursday pages and the list and the votes the way people talk about a job they've been given."
"Last spring."
"We went out for about a month."
I felt my face change.
"You and Delaney."
"A month. It was nothing. It was a mistake, and I ended it."
"You dated her, and you never told me."
"You weren't speaking to me."
"I was speaking to you."
"You said good morning, Hattie. You said pass the salt."
It was true.
I had spoken to him for ten months in exactly as many words as I needed.
"So when term started you went around asking people to be nice to me."
"I thought it couldn't hurt. I thought if they wrote kind things, nobody would write the other thing."
"And nobody told me."
"You'd have been furious."
"I'm furious now."
"I know."
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