I want them to feel safe coming to me for anything.
I wouldn’t care if they weren’t straight-A students or played a sport.
I’d love the fuck out of them.
They would want for nothing.
PS. You’re going to have to be the tough parent because I will give those tiny humans whatever they want.
– Ev
His notes make me smile. Every. Damn. Time. His song references, his silly little comments about couples counseling, even his comments about my looks. I’m all smiles over here. He is relentless, and each day I burn for him more and more, crumbling to ashes.
The facts about himself… I have committed them to memory. I have a feeling that these facts are for me and me alone, that no one knows them but me. It’s special. It’s real. It makes me fall for him even more. The way he includes me in his future, like it’s set in stone, makes my heart-wings flutter. I want all that too. With him. And as I think about us, what that would look like, the self-doubt and words my mother has placed in my head surface.
Face it Leora, you'll never leave this place. Just like me, you'll be stuck.
Girls like us don't get the knight in shiny armor. We aren't meant for great love stories. The sooner you realize that, the better.
Each day, I received a new note, and Ev has been kind enough not to push me in class. It’s been hard for him. I can tell he wants to talk to me, not just about chemistry. But he remains steadfast.
I’m contemplating all this, all that he has given me, while I slurp down my cup of noodles at lunch. I’m making the most unattractive noises when I hear it. Footsteps, coming my way.
“Hi,” a tall, scrawny boy speaks up. His dark hair is long and messy, hanging into his eyes, and he is wearing similar clothes to Ev. Black slacks and a button-up that remains untucked. He has that whole rich kid emo vibe, but is also strangely… pretty. I like it. But I don't like him intruding on my safe place.
I sucked in the noodle that was dangling from my shocked mouth. “Hi.”
“Are you Leora?” His voice is gravelly and cold. Deeper than I was expecting for such a pretty guy.
My brows pinch in. “Why?”
He pulls out the chair next to me.
“What do you want?”Don't sit. Don't sit. Don't sit.
He gives a soft huff that he keeps in his throat, not even smiling, and sits. “Yeah, he said you would want to be alone.”
“Who— Never mind. Everett sent you?”
“Not so much sentme as begged me.”
He pulls out a note, and when I don’t immediately take it, he speaks again. “Look, I don’t care if you take the note or not, but I do care about Everett. He is good, Leora. Not like anyone else. He sticks up for the little guy, and he seems to have taken a liking to you. The least you could do is give him a chance.”
He slides me the note and then stands to leave.
“Wait. Who are you?”
“The little guy.”
I throw my head forward and rest it on the table. Banging it three times. Why won't he let me move on in misery? But I know why, because as much as he can’t let me go, I can’t let him go. The twenty-something portraits I have drawn of him in the last two weeks would be solid proof of that. He fills every crevice in my brain. He's infected my heart with his sweet words and stupid dimples.
Damn him.
I open his origami heart-note.
Leora. Definition: light.
Gage will be at Senior Tree tonight at 7.
