“Go to bed, Morgan.”
She doesn’t like to fall asleep and then have the noise of me brushing my teeth wake her up an hour later.
I peek out of the peephole of our front door on my way to my bedroom. I can’t see Evan’s front door, of course, but I can tell the porch light isn’t on. Everything outside of our apartment is dark. And quiet. It’s the kind of silence that hurts.
I stop at the entrance to my mom’s room before I turn into mine. She’s sitting in bed, reading a romance novel. She buys them from the spin rack at the hospital pharmacy. The cover of her book has a guy with long hair and no shirt kissing the bare shoulder of a lady in a ripped dress on the deck of a pirate ship.
“Mom?”
She sets the book down on her stomach. “Yeah?”
There are things I want to tell her, but she looks so tired. I want to say I went outside today. I want to tell her Brenda was proud of me. But then I think maybe I need that to be something that only belongs to me right now. I don’t want to get her hopes up.
“I just wanted to say good night.”
She holds her arms out to me, and I cross over and sink into them. She brushes my hair back from my face and kisses the top of my head like I’m Ben’s age.
“You okay?” She talks against my hair so her words are kind of muffled.
I nod and hug her tighter. The safe smell of her makes me wish I could stay there all night. Instead, I stand up, kiss her on the cheek, and sneak quietly into my room so I don’t wake up Ben.
I slide between my polka-dot sheets. I think of Evan and how my words must’ve scared him. It seems like he would’ve come over if he’d been happy to get my letter. This realization makes me question everything Brenda has ever told me. She said lots of people would be thrilled to get a letter from me. But Evan obviously wasn’t thrilled. How could I have been so stupid? And what if this isn’t the only thing Brenda is wrong about?
chapter twelve
The sound of Evan thumping down the stairs early the next morning wakes me up. He’s up before the sun. I peek out from behind the curtains of my bedroom window just as the tail end of his surfboard rounds the corner by the front gate. He’s on dawn patrol, getting some surfing in before school starts. All the good surfers in town do that. I know the smell of him without being there. I think of him sitting astride his board, bobbing around in the middle of the ocean, waiting for a wave and missing Hawaii.
My letter definitely scared him.
I picture Ben waving his hands up in the air last night when he said the alligator in his play was crazy. Maybe Evan thinks about me that way. He doesn’t want to deal with crazy.
I pack Ben’s lunch. I watch him and my mom hustle out the door. My mom’s keys jingle as they dangle from her fingertip when she goes. I smile as I watch Ben soar through the courtyard. He trips and almost falls into the pool, but my mom catches him by his elbow just in time. And then they push through the gate, disappearing just like Evan did this morning. Neither of them realizes I’m standing on the welcome mat watching them go.
*
My day is my day: Schoolwork. Soap operas. Sandwich. Soup.
A little after three p.m., I hear the thump thump of Evan climbing up the stairs. Like a total creeper, I rush to the front door and peer through the peephole, but he’s already moved past my welcome mat. I can hear him outside, though, so I move to the window and open the curtain just enough to peek outside without being seen. I catch sight of him as he bends down to pick up something.
He studies it.
I can’t tell what he’s holding until he stands straight again.
He turns it over in his hand.
My letter.
He didn’t see it until now. Ben must’ve shoved it under the mat. Or it was hidden in the dark. That’s what I get for sending a five-year-old to deliver the most important thing I’ve ever written.
He rips it open.
He backs up against the railing of the balcony in front of my door.
He reads.
I want to know what he’s thinking.
I watch him even though I shouldn’t.
The look on his face stays put. It doesn’t give away anything.
Dear Evan,