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No, surely not. Even if it was extremely easy to take the lid off, looking through other people’s love letters was something you simply weren’t meant to do.
The rest of the day was relatively uneventful. Lunch with Joan was the same as always, and I figured the love letters hadn’t been mailed yet. It was only at the end of the day as everyone returned to their lockers when girls started screeching, waving letters. And when I unlocked my locker, a folded-up piece of paper fell out onto the ground.
My heart jumped into my throat. Oh my god. Maybe Joan had the same idea and sent me a letter too.
Slowly, I picked up the letter and opened it up. The first thing I felt was disappointment. It was not Joan’s handwriting.
In fact, I didn’t recognise the handwriting at all — it didn’t even resemble the messy scrawls of the fake love letters I’d received in the past.
Every letter was angular and evenly spaced, as if the author was trying to maintain anonymity by hiding their real handwriting.
To Charlie,
To tell you the truth, I like you a lot. I know you don’t think so, but to me, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.
From: A secret admirer.
I stared at the lines of black ink pressed into the paper. The warm swell of emotion lasted about five seconds before I heard the crows of laughter. I looked up, and it felt like I’d been punched in the gut. It was the popular boys, with Lucas in the middle of the group. Every single one of them was watching me. “No way,” one said. “Did someone write Charlie a letter?”—“Who’d write Charlie a letter?”—“Did you write it to yourself? Well, did you?”
It had been a prank. I scrunched the letter up in my fist and, with as much composure as I could manage, finished packing my schoolbag. I walked to the school bus stop. Every step felt heavy, and my eyes were beginning to burn. When I passed a bin, I chucked the letter in, as hard as I could, but paper doesn’t make a satisfying sound when landing against rubbish, so I didn’t feel much better.
I was praying the bus would arrive quickly when Lucas found me.
“Hi,” he said.
I was not in the mood. I still couldn’t believe I was naive enough to think for one second that someone liked me.
“What.”
“So, uh.” He cleared his throat. He probably needed a couple of seconds to think up the best way to verbally humiliate me. “Did you get a love letter?”
“No.”
“But I saw you holding it before.”
I looked around for his friends, to see whether they were watching nearby. I couldn’t find them, but I still kept my face as expressionless as I could. “No, that was nothing. It was just a piece of rubbish.”
There was a long silence.
“Who did you write a letter to?” Lucas asked.
“Leave me alone.”
“Tell me.”
“No. Fuck off.”
There was a pause. Then, Lucas raised his hands in surrender and widened his eyes. “Oooh,” he said mockingly.
I wanted to go home and lie in my bed. I suddenly felt exhausted, like every bone in my body weighed a hundred kilos.
“I got a letter,” Lucas said as he started to unzip his schoolbag.
“Only one?” I figured he’d receive at least twenty.
“Only one that matters.” He pulled the letter out and started to read. “To Lucas…”
I tuned him out. At least until he said, “Joan is so cute, isn’t she? I had no idea she was into me.”
