Dear Little Jo,
A girl came up to me at the bus stop after school. She had more freckles than I’ve ever seen on a human face. Bright orange curly hair. “Abigail Cuttler,” she says, and sticks out her hand for me to shake.
My bus arrived, and she asked if I minded waiting for the next one so we could chat a bit about you. “My correspondent, Jonathan Hopkirk,” she called you.
So we stood in the bus shelter and she talked for a while, nervously and fast. She kept swallowing between sentences and her mouth kept making little sticky sounds like she didn’t have enough saliva. The whole thing was a confession, Jo. Apparently you haven’t written to her since the week before Bron’s party. “Three full weeks ago,” in Abigail’s words. And apparently she thinks it’s entirely her fault. Turns out she’s the one who saw the butcherboys slam you up against the lockers that day and went to the office and reported it. She didn’t just report that incident, she said. I guess you’d written her about some of the other times those guys harassed you.
“I only wanted to be a good citizen,” Abigail said, “and not a harmful bystander. I felt like a harmful bystander reading his letters already, and then when I actually saw it happening with my own eyes…”
And she stops talking finally and starts to cry a little, or starts to try not to cry, so I dig around in my backpack for a tissue to give her. What Abigail thinks is that you’re pissed at her. She thinks she destroyed your confidence in her. Her words: destroyed his confidence. I mean she is taking this really hard, and really personally.
Jo, you and I both know who destroyed your confidence in whom, and we know it wasn’t Abigail Cuttler. So I try to explain some of this to her. I say it was my fault, not hers. I say it turned out I couldn’t be anywhere close to the person you wanted me to be. The person you needed. I say I couldn’t change who I am.
Abigail acts completely confused by this. Her eyes get really round and she blinks a lot, which looks kind of extra-dramatic since her eyelashes are invisible. “Jonathan writes about you all the time,” she says. “I’ve never gotten any indication from him that he wants you to change who you are.”
I mean she obviously doesn’t know anything about Bron’s party, or about any of the unforgivable stuff I did after she reported the butcherboys.
“You’ll have to take my word for it,” I tell her.
“He called you a marvel,” Abigail says. “He said he was trying every day to deserve you.”
She’s still blinking really fast as she talks. Somehow it convinces me that she’s remembering the exact wording of the letter she’s quoting.
“He said he was watching you create a new world in front of his eyes.”
I mean it sounds like one of your letters, Jo. I almost recognize it. And I can feel my face getting hot. Listening to your words recited by this girl I don’t even know.
“He was keenly aware that you were a gift to him, a temporary blessing he had to make himself worthy to receive.”
I want her to stop talking, but I’m having trouble getting the words out. “That was before,” I finally say. “It’s ruined now. I ruined it.”
She stops blinking and stares at me. “No,” she says. “You couldn’t have ruined it. No.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I feel like I’m letting Abigail Cuttler down. Suddenly this almost feels worse than all the other horrible things I’ve done in the last few weeks. And now it’s me trying not to cry. I mean I can’t even look at her.
She doesn’t say anything. After a minute she just exits the bus shelter and walks away across the street.
Jo, will you please write to Abigail again? It doesn’t bother me that you wrote to her about me. In fact I’m really glad you did, because now she’s someone you can write to who will understand what you’re talking about.
You need someone, Jo.
Sincerely,
AK