The Letter

Everyone was gone.

Chairs scraping, bags zipping, people spilling out the door like the bell was a personal attack on their freedom. I was halfway out of my seat when his voice stopped me.

"Miss Ellis. Please wait behind."

My whole body went stiff.

Priya looked back at me from the doorway. I gave her the smile that meant I'm fine, go, I will tell you everything later, and she disappeared. Then it was just me and Mr. Vance and the kind of silence that has actual weight to it.

I walked up slowly and stopped in front of his desk. Kept my face completely neutral like a person who had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Nova," I said. "Nova Ellis… you said my surname earlier, and I'm curious how you knew that."

He looked at me for a second. Then that small smile came onto his face. Not mean. Just… knowing, like he found something quietly funny that he wasn't going to share.

"Nova." He said it slowly, like he was filing it away somewhere. "Funny thing… I feel like we've met before."

My heart dropped to the floor.

"Uhmm… I don't think so, sir." The words came out so smooth I almost believed myself. "I have one of those faces, people say that a lot actually."

"Do they."

"All the time sir, very common face. Completely forgettable… nothing special about it at all."

He just looked at me. That small smile didn't move even a little.

"Okay, Nova." He picked up a pen and looked down at his desk. "You can go."

I turned around and walked to the door at a completely normal speed that was definitely not a controlled panic.

"I'm looking forward to having you in class," he said behind me, calm as anything.

I did not turn around. I went through that door and kept walking, i didn't even stop until I was halfway down the hall and could breathe again.

Okay, fine. That was fine. Everything was completely fine.

—

Leo. The letter. Focus.

The match had ended twenty minutes ago which meant the players were in the changing area near the rink, getting back into their school clothes before heading out. If I moved fast I could still catch him.

I stopped outside the door and pressed the letter flat against my palm.

"Okay Nova," I whispered to myself. "You have survived worse things than this today. You can do this. Walk in, say his name, hand him the letter, walk out. That's it. Simple."

I pushed the door open and walked in.

"Leo…" My voice came out smaller than I wanted. I cleared my throat and tried again, louder this time. "Leo, hey. I've been meaning to tell you something for a really long time and every time I try to say it in person I forget how words work, so I just wrote it all down instead and…"

I held the letter out in front of me and squeezed my eyes shut because I physically could not watch his face while he took it.

"...it's all in there, you don't have to say anything right now… you can just read it and…"

Silence.

Then the sound of paper unfolding.

The letter left my fingers.

Okay… okay good. The hard part was over. He had it. I just needed to stand here for approximately five more seconds, then I could leave and not exist for the rest of the week.

I opened my eyes.

The person standing in front of me was not Leo.

Rhys Caldwell stood there in a white shirt, hair still slightly damp, holding my letter open with both hands and reading it with this expression of calm, genuine interest that made me want to dissolve into the floor and never come back.

"That's not…" My voice came out like something broken. "That's… give that back."

He didn't give it back, he turned to the next page.

"Give it back right now…"

"Shh." He actually shushed me. "I'm reading."

"You are not… that is not for you… give it to me this second…"

"Leo has really nice eyes," he read out loud, in this calm unbothered voice like he was doing a presentation. "They're the kind of brown that looks gold when the sun hits them and sometimes when he looks at me across the classroom I have to remind myself to breathe." He paused. "That's actually not bad."

"STOP…"

"Sometimes I think about what it would be like if he just held my hand after class." He tilted his head slightly. "Just once. Just to see." He looked up at me briefly. "You're so romantic. Interesting."

"I will end your entire existence…"

"Oh." His eyebrow went up. He had found the next section.

"No… no no no…" I lunged for it.

He held it above his head without even looking at me. He was so much taller it was genuinely offensive.

Then he read the fantasy part.

Out loud.

In that same calm, even voice, like it was the most normal thing in the world. Every single word I had written at midnight in my room thinking absolutely no one would ever see it, every embarrassing detailed thing I had put on that page, coming out of this stranger's mouth like a book report while I stood there making a sound that wasn't quite a scream and wasn't quite a word, just one long continuous noise of pure suffering.

When he finished, he lowered the letter and looked at me with something that was almost like respect.

"You'd be really good at writing erotica," he said.

I screamed.

The door flew open two seconds later and three girls rushed in, the same ones from the bleachers, already looking ready to fight someone.

"What is going on?" The highlight girl stared at me like I was a cockroach. "Why is she in here? What is this girl doing with you, Rhys?"

Rhys looked at them. Slow, bored, like he was genuinely trying to figure out where he had seen them before.

"Do I know you?" he said.

The girl blinked. "We're in your AP Calc class. We literally sit right behind…"

"Okay." He looked back at me. Just like that. Like they weren't even worth the full sentence.

The girls stood there for another second, looked at each other, and left with the energy of people who had just been quietly humiliated without anyone raising their voice. I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't currently dying.

I pointed at the letter. "Give it to me."

"You didn't even say thank you," he said. "I just handled that for you."

"Give. It. To. Me."

"What if I showed your classmates this?" He tilted it toward me casually. "The ones you described on page two?"

"You wouldn't."

"I'm literally holding it right now."

"That is my private property and you had absolutely no right to open it…"

"You handed it to me."

"I handed it to LEO…"

"Leo isn't here." He shrugged. One shoulder. Like this whole situation was mildly entertaining at best. "I am."

I looked at him, and he also looked back at me. Completely unbothered. That lazy almost-smile sitting on his face like he had all the time in the world.

I grabbed for the letter, he moved it. I grabbed again, he stepped back. I lost every last piece of my patience and bit his hand.

He made a sharp sound. I snatched the letter, shoved it into my bag, and ran.

I made it exactly four steps into the hallway before my foot caught on absolutely nothing… the way it always does when the universe has decided to personally finish you off… and I went down hard on my knees. My skirt flipped all the way up.

I yanked it down, scrambled up, and kept walking without looking back even once.

From inside the changing room I heard him laugh. Low and easy, like he was genuinely having a great time.

I hated him so much.

Mom's car was right outside the front entrance, engine running. I dropped into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut with slightly more force than necessary.

"Nova Ellis." Mom's voice had that tone. "Can you explain to me why your underwear was on full display to everyone in that parking lot just now?"

"OHH… I fell."

"You fell?"

"Can we just go, please."

She gave me the look for a solid five seconds. Then she pulled out of the parking lot. I slumped into my seat and stared out the window and thought seriously about moving to another country.

"That stupid guy," I muttered. "He definitely saw my underwear… what an embarrassment. BULLSHIT.”

"What guy?"

"Nobody… nothing. Please drive faster."

Mom shook her head slowly in the way that meant she was choosing not to ask any more questions for now, which I appreciated deeply.

Then after a while her voice changed. Softer. The kind of soft she only got when she was talking about David.

"I have some news, baby."

I looked at her, she was trying not to smile too wide and completely failing.

David Park, my stepfather of eight months. The man who had walked into my mother's life two years ago and quietly, steadily made her smile again in a way she hadn't since my dad died. I couldn't be anything but happy about him… honestly, even on my worst days.

"We're moving into his house today," she said. "I know it's sudden. But he wants us home with him and I… I want that too."

I looked at her face. The way her whole expression had gone soft, warm and full in a way that used to only happen in old photographs.

"Mom." I reached over and squeezed her hand. "Let's go home."

She laughed, and drove.

The house was big. Not showing off big, just quietly, solidly big, the kind of place that said the person living in it had nothing to prove to anyone. Mom and David disappeared somewhere with the bags, voices low and happy, and I wandered through the halls just to get a feel for everything.

I found a hallway that opened up to the back of the house, wide glass doors leading out to a deck and a pool that caught the last of the evening light all gold and clean.

There was someone in the water.

A guy, doing laps, cutting through the water clean and fast. Even from the back, he was devastatingly handsome… broad shoulders, a powerful build, and the kind of presence that made him impossible to ignore. I stood there for a second just watching because I wasn't expecting anyone else to be here. Then he reached the near end, pushed his wet hair back, stood up and turned around.

My brain went completely, totally blank.

Rhys Caldwell stood in my stepfather's swimming pool, water running off him, looking just as surprised as I was for exactly one second before his expression settled back into that same unbothered calm.

Then he smiled.

"Wow… Interesting. Hi stepsister," he said.

I had absol

utely nothing. No words. No thoughts… nothing.

Just the universe laughing at me.

OH MY GOODNESS… I HATE THIS