Dear Alex,
I know you don’t remember the first time we met. You talked to me backstage, but when we ran into each other a few days later, you had no idea who I was. Which is part of why I had a hard time trusting you. I was afraid you’d forget me again.
You know that day we were sitting in my backyard and the leaves were falling and you were telling me what it’s like to have a crush on someone? I get it now.
To tell you the truth, I knew then. I was just too much of a coward to admit what I was feeling. Which is why this letter will never be sent. And I’m the only one who’ll know that the times we had together were the closest my life has ever come to the kind of moments that could be in a book.
Love
Affectionately
Cordially
Yours Truly
Regards
Mary
for poetry, it was this one. Unfortunately, in our house all the romantic verse was stored on a bedside shelf in our parents’ room, which for many reasons discouraged casual browsing.
Two days and a dozen failed attempts later, I bent my steps toward the public library. Nodding a quick hello to the librarian on duty, I made a beeline for the Literature and Poetry section. There was no one else around. My finger traced the many-colored spines until I hit the word romantic. Pulling the heavy book from the shelf, I rested it on my knee. From my pocket, I withdrew the latest draft of my letter to Alex, using the flat of my hand to smooth it. It needed to be better. Perfect. Irresistible.
Time passed, and I kept turning pages. I didn’t want a poem that was obviously talking about getting it on. Nor did I want one of the really saccharine odes to rosebuds and cherubs (which were probably also about sex). It needed to be something that felt like me, and my feelings for Alex, in a non-cheesy way. I rolled my shoulders. Maybe the whole thing was hopeless. I’d tell my friends I’d tried, but it was no good.
Tucking the book under my arm, I climbed stiffly to my feet. I needed to walk around, drink some water, get the juices flowing. Preoccupied by my own thoughts, I was oblivious to my surroundings until I stumbled into the study area. It was packed with people of all ages, including a healthy sprinkling of faces I recognized from school. Apparently that was the kind of thing that happened when everyone had final exams the same week.
Since I had no desire to talk to anyone, particularly while in possession of a book of love poems, I kept my head down and hurried on. A pair of legs entered my field of vision. I looked up to avoid a collision.
“Oh,” I breathed, coming to an abrupt halt. “Oh, no!”
“Hello to you, too,” said Alex Ritter.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I whispered, conscious of our audience. “It’s just—the timing.”
“Well, don’t let me keep you.” He stepped around me, heading for a table with a single empty chair, and three very pretty girls obviously awaiting his return.
“Oh,” I said again. “I see.” My gaze fell to the book of poetry in my hands. Talk about a wasted effort. How stupid of me to think he wouldn’t have found someone else by now.
“What?” Alex stopped with his back to me.
“Nothing.”
With obvious reluctance, he turned around. At the same moment, the letter slipped from my grip. I stood frozen with horror, watching it float through the air. Then Alex reached for it.
I lunged, plucking the page from the carpet and holding it out of his reach.
His eyes narrowed. “It’s obviously something.” Realizing he was trying to read the title of my book, I twisted aside. A white-haired woman cleared her throat, then pointed to the sign on her table: QUIET, PLEASE!
I took a tentative step to the left, sending a questioning look Alex’s way. He sighed but followed me into the cookbook section. When we reached the remotest end of the aisle, I pivoted to face him. My heart was beating so hard, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to speak.
“What?” he asked, arms crossed.
I glanced at the page half crumpled in my fist, then back at him. “It’s a letter.”
“Okay.” He shrugged angrily. “I wasn’t trying to read your mail.”
My toes curled inside my shoes as though gripping the end of a diving board. “It’s yours, actually.”
“You stole my mail?”
I closed my eyes. This was going so well. “It’s to you—from me.”
His gaze fell to the page in my hand. “Do I get to read it?”
“It’s not finished.” In fact, I suspected it might never be finished. I’d keep writing forever, never quite getting it right, until I was a withered crone, and he was a well-preserved movie star with a house on the Riviera and dozens of linen shirts in varying shades of blue.
“You said it was mine.” Uncrossing his arms, he held out a hand. “What does it say at the top?”
“‘Dear Alex,’” I admitted, unable to stop myself from glancing at the telltale words. “But that’s not—”
“Yes, it is.” He locked eyes with me, and even though he wasn’t doing the Smolder or any of his other signature looks, I melted. It felt like centuries since we’d been close enough for a staring contest. Before I could think better of it, I handed him the letter.
“Thank you,” he said stiffly, as though I’d passed him the pepper grinder at a dinner party. “You can read your love poems while I look this over.”
I choked, and not just because he’d spied the subject of my book. “You can’t read it now!”
“Why not?” His thumb stroked the edge of the page, where a translucent spot marred the white paper. “Is this grease?”
“It certainly is not.” I scoffed at the very idea.
“Then what is it?”
“I’d rather not say.”
His nose wrinkled. “Something worse than grease?”
I pressed my lips together, looking away. “They’re tear stains, okay?” Instantly, my face went up in flames.
“Why were you crying?” Alex asked, after a lengthy pause.
My eyes cut to his face, checking for signs of mockery and finding none. “Because . . . you were right, and I was wrong.”
His brows rose.
“About everything. You. Me. My sister . . . s. My friends. The past. The present.”
“I get the idea,” he interrupted. “Is that all?”
I looked down. “I missed you. And I wanted to see you so much, but I knew it would never happen because I screwed up so badly. Ugh!” My foot stomped like a toddler’s. “That was supposed to be way more eloquent.” I gestured helplessly at the letter.
He looked at the page in his hands. “Maybe I better read it at home. If it’s a tearjerker.”
“You should definitely wait. I could make you a clean copy,” I offered, leaping at the chance of a reprieve. “This one’s really messy. I should fix it for you.”
“You’re just trying to steal my letter.”
“Look, that’s a blob of avocado,” I said desperately, pointing to another spot.
Alex blinked at me. “You were eating avocado while you wrote this?”
“Guacamole is my comfort food.”
“I like warm milk,” he confided. “With honey.”
“That’s—a really good one.”
“You sound surprised.”
I shook my head, wanting to smile but not sure I had the right. We were drifting toward a semblance of our old rapport. The desire to have him look at me in that teasing way again, to call me Merrily, was a physical ache.
“I’m sorry, Alex.” In the letter, I’d devoted three paragraphs to the subject, naming everything I’d done wrong. Standing here in front of him, the simplest words felt truest.
His jaw tightened. “What about your friends? Do they still think I’m the devil?”
“Not at all. I made a clean breast of it.” An uncomfortable silence ensued, during which we both studiously avoided glancing at my chest. “I told them everything, I mean.”
“They got a letter, too?”
The heat rushed back to my face. “Only you.” I took a deep breath. “You don’t owe me anything, obviously, and you’re probably still mad, but if you do read it, instead of ripping it up or setting it on fire, that would—I would be grateful.”
When I risked a glance at him, his expression revealed nothing.
“I better get back to my group,” he said at last. As he turned to go, he folded the letter and tucked it in his pocket.