Page 197 of Glitched Play

Something has changed.

I just don't know what it could be. I didn’t notice him getting an urgent text during the game. I check my phone.

"I'm going to Annika and Parker’s.” I tell him.

He gives one small nod. "Good."

No kiss.

No smile.

Just another thoughtful nod and that worries me more than anything else.

thirty-nine

. . .

Witt

Letter 240 Glitch

If we ever happen to cross paths...

I wonder if we'll feel it immediately.

Like we've always known each other.

It sounds like something from a rom-com.

I've only watched a few with my sister.

No judgments.

The whisper of stationary sliding across cotton sheets has a distinct sound. The crackle of envelopes opened so many times the folds have become soft.

For ten years, I've kept every single letter.

Some are folded into perfect squares.

Some have coffee stains still in the envelopes.

One still smells faintly like vanilla.

Tonight they cover my bed.

Letters.

Journal pages.

Envelopes.

Ten years of conversations with a girl I'd never met.

Or so I'd believed.

I move another page aside, then another, my fingers brushing over ten years of conversations I'd never been able to throw away. I'd always told myself I kept them because they mattered. Because Rune mattered. But now my pulse pounds against my ribs with every page I turn, and I finally understand there was another reason. Somewhere in these letters is the sentence that just made my heart stutter in the middle of a football game. The sentence Maci said as casually as if she'd been saying it her entire life.

It couldn't be.