Dear Wesley, Thank you for being honest with me. It’s not a surprise that you don’t want me as a friend. I’m used to people not wanting me. You see, I’m an orphan. My parents left me when I was a baby. I was only a few days old. I have lived in pretty much one home a year since I was a baby. So I guess that would make it nine homes now, since I am nine years old. And since I move so much, it makes it harder to make friends. I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad. I just wanted to tell you I know why you did it and even though you didn’t ask for it, I forgive you. I hope you get your A. Haven Kenway **********WESLEY POV The reply letter came in our packhouse mail almost a week after I sent mine. I didn’t realize that I wrote my home address as the return address on the envelope instead of the school’s address. I arrived home to find the letter was already opened. It was on the small, round dining table in the kitchen of the alpha suite (we called it a suite, but it was r

Dear Haven, It’s me. Wesley. Wesley Stone. Well, I guess that it is probably pretty obvious that it’s me, since my name is on the outside of the envelope, and I’m also probably the only person who writes you letters. Crap. That probably sounded ruder than I meant it to. I just meant that most people don’t really write letters nowadays, so if you were to receive a letter from someone, it would make sense for it to be a letter from someone who had already written you a letter before. Not that no one would want to write you a letter. That’s not what I meant. Great, now I’m rambling. You probably won’t even read this, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. I was kind of rude to you before. No, scratch that, I was REALLY rude to you before. I could try to push the blame off of myself and say something like “Well, I didn’t know that my pen pal would be an orphan,” but that would be immature of me, because, no matter who the letter was for, I should have never written the letter the way

Dear Haven, I cannot tell you how happy I was to receive your second letter. Well, no, I guess I probably could try to tell you how happy you made me, but in all honesty there are not enough words in the English language or any language to express how I felt when I saw your letter finally come in. You can’t tell anyone this. But I was waiting and waiting and waiting, hoping that you would give me another chance, and I’m not going to lie — at one point I thought maybe you had decided I wasn’t worth it. But seriously, please don’t tell anyone, because I have already endured enough teasing from my parents and my brother, and even a little bit from my best friend, Reid. Not that I’m embarrassed to be your friend, that’s not it at all. It’s just that the constant taunting from my little brother and my best friends is annoying. So annoying. That’s what it’s like, by the way, to have siblings. ANNOYING. Okay, okay, it’s not ALL bad. Sebastian, my little brother who is two years younger

HAVEN POV The unfamiliar sensations of the woman’s hands massaging my feet kept eliciting uncontrollable giggles from my mouth. My body tensed with each of her ministrations. Mom insisted we needed a girl’s day, filled with every type of girly pampering one can imagine. So far, we’d gone shopping and picked out fancy outfits, had our hair cut and styled, and the last step was getting manicures and pedicures. I picked out a sparkly gold nail polish for both my fingernails and toenails, the color an almost perfect match for the gold accessories I bought to go with my dark purple dress. Mom hadn’t told me why we were going through all of this effort, but I guessed she had some exciting surprise planned for us. I just needed to be patient, and eventually she would let me know what was going on. Another giggle involuntarily burst through my lips as she moved her massaging up to my calf. I had to pinch my lips together to suppress the noise when she gave me a stern, reproachful glare. I

HAVEN POV The waiting room at the hospital was cold. Cold, and white, and clean, and filled with the scents of disinfectant, stale coffee, and anxiety. I sat quietly in place in my chair with my book bag, scanning the room, watching the waiting family members of the other patients in this wing of the hospital. I also watched the nurses as they came and went from the unit. The amount of people in the waiting room dwindled, and the darkening sky outside signaled the approaching end of visiting hours. And, yet again, they had not allowed me to go back to see my dad. “Come on, kiddo,” Scott said as he walked towards me from the restroom. “It’s time to head home.” “Mom?” He grimaced. “She’s staying here again. I guess they’re giving her a few more nights of it before they tell her she can’t anymore.” I nodded and grabbed my bag and followed him out to his car. It had been the same routine for several weeks. School, hospital waiting room, home, repeat. Except, “home” kept changing. S