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“I never wanted to be on a pedestal, Wyatt.”
“Of course not,” I said. “And yet, here we are.”
“What does that mean? Wyatt, what’s going on? I’m sorry I didn’t read the letters, but that’s why I asked my mom to send them. Dutch and Naomi convinced me to read them.”
“Oh, that’s nice. You had to be convinced. Real nice, Tilly.”
“Don’t twist my words.”
“And here I was thinking of blowing off UCLA…for you.” I shook my head. “God, I’m such an idiot.”
“I never asked you to blow that off. I would never do that.”
“But you wanted me to.”
“No, I didn’t!” Tilly protested, shaking her head.
“Fine, whatever, you didn’t.” I sat down on her bed, sifting through the unopened envelopes again.
“All this time, you never even opened them.”
“I—I’m sorry. But, Wyatt, they’re just letters.”
“Just letters?” I asked, my eyes wet with tears. “Everything I wrote in these—I put it all out there, Tilly. And I don’t know what’s worse, thinking you read them all and didn’t bother to respond, or this…you just threw them in a box somewhere and didn’t even wonder how I was or what I was doing. Hell, something fucking earth-shattering could have happened to me and you wouldn’t have known. At least when I thought you’d read them, I thought you knew where I was, how I was, and how determined I was to get back to you. No wonder you didn’t know I was back in Illinois. It was all in here.”
I waved the letters around like the bitter, hurt fool that I was.
“I’ll read them now. We can read them together. Wyatt, please—” She placed her arm around on my shoulder, but I pulled away.
“No.” I shook my head. “You may as well just throw them out. They’re ‘just letters,’ right?” My words dripped with venom.
“Wyatt,” she said, sitting down next to me. I jumped to my feet. “That’s not what I meant. It just came out wrong.”
“I gotta go.”
“No, stay. Let’s talk about it. I’ll read the letters, and I’ll make this up to you!”
“I can’t. I—I don’t want to be here right now. I’m going home.”
Tilly rose to her feet. “But you…you said you’d wait forever,” she said, her voice meek. “You told me you’d wait forever.”
One tear ran down my cheek as I tossed the letters on her bed. “Yeah, well…maybe you aren’t the girl I thought you were.”
I left her there, standing in her room, the envelopes scattered on top of her purple comforter like white shards of glass. Fuming and brokenhearted, I grabbed my backpack from the living room floor.
“Wyatt, are you okay?” Ronnie asked, jumping from her chair.
Dutch had a guilty look on his face as he scratched the top of his head. “Norway, look, man, I’m really sorry.”
I didn’t want to talk to them; all I wanted was to get the hell out of there. I couldn’t breathe, and I knew the longer I stayed in that apartment, the more my anger would build until I exploded.
And as pissed off as I was, I didn’t want to do that.
I just wanted to breathe.
“It’s fine,” I said, continuing to the front door. “But I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t go,” Ronnie said. “Whatever it is, you guys will be okay.”
I shook my head, said nothing, and walked out of Tilly’s apartment, not knowing if I would ever return.
