Love Letters

“You’re wrong,” Andy hissed, slamming her hand down on my math book. I raised my eyebrows.

“How am I wrong? You have to divide the percentage by whatever the other number is and then multiply it by one hundred. You subtracted. You’re wrong,” I replied, pushing her hand away. “And by the way, seven minus thirty-two is not negative twenty. I don’t understand how you’re in a University level math class.”

Andy frowned and covered her face in her hands. “I don’t either. Why am I so bad at math?”

“Probably because of Pax,” I said, laughing. “He told you that multiplication and subtraction were the opposite things in grade four and now it’s drilled into your brain.”

“What’s up people? I heard my name,” Pax said, sitting down next to me. He looked down at my math sheets. “Why are you doing homework right now? We just got back to school today.” I held up the seven page booklet that our math teacher had given us to finish as review before we got into the actual course work tomorrow. “What the hell is wrong with your teacher?”

“University level course,” I said, flipping the page. “We’ve got to get this done.”

Andy kicked me in the shin beneath the table and I yelped. “Ow! What?”

She nodded over my shoulder and I turned around. Dalton Tanner stood at the doorway with his hands in his pockets while his fascinatingly blue eyes surveying the cafeteria for somewhere to sit. Dalton could sit anywhere he wanted, really, because there weren’t many people that had a problem with him and there probably wasn’t a girl in here that would turn him down either. He was that guy. Of course, some people had their own personal beef with him but not me. He could sit next to me any day.

“Good grief,” Pax mumbled, rolling his eyes. “You had to point him out, didn’t you? Now he’s going to be all she talks about for the rest of the lunch period.”

I turned away from the near six foot, blond haired beauty with great posture and looked back at Pax. My eyes were narrowed and my mouth dropped into a deep frown. I couldn’t really argue with him about being amazed by Dalton’s mere presence because he really was a sight, but I wasn’t going to talk about him for a whole period. That was mostly because the only thing I would be able to say was “gosh, he is really hot”. Truth was, I knew absolutely nothing about Dalton except for what I had heard from people. Some said he was a sweetheart, others said he was a jerk but I couldn’t believe rumors so right now, I didn’t have any opinion of him.

“Give it a rest. I’m not going to talk about him all through lunch,” I said. “I have work to do.”

“I heard he and Roxanne broke up,” Andy whispered, tapping my hand. “They’ve been together for years. No one saw it coming.”

Pax rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the support, Andy.”

“Where’s Trey?” she asked, looking around. “I haven’t seen him today, besides first period.”

“He’s with Ruby right now, I think,” Pax responded, holding up his phone. “Want me to text him?”

“Nah, it’s no big deal,” Andy replied, shaking her head. Ruby Ehrlich was Trey’s girlfriend for just over four months now and they seemed to be doing pretty good. Although, from what Pax had told me, she liked to hit people a lot for the thrill of it. She had been over at their house a couple of weeks ago and when she beat Trey at one of the video games they had been playing, she socked him in the shoulder so hard that he almost fell off the bed. I had seen her before and the power in her hands definitely didn’t match up with her tiny physique and innocent first impression. I had actually hung out with her a lot of times and their hitting theory just sounded like a load of bull. She was a really awesome person.

I reached into my bag to grab my calculator but it wasn’t there. I felt around my pockets and frowned. “Andy, did you take my calculator?” She shook her head and pointed to Pax, who snickered and held up the calculator proudly. “How did you steal that without me noticing?”

“I’m that good,” he replied. “Look, I spelled ‘boobies’.”

I rolled my eyes and snatched it from him. “You’re so mature.”

He grinned. “What are your next two classes?”

“Philosophy and then English. What about you?”

“American history with Andy, and then graphic design,” he replied, giving me a small nod. “You’ve got English with Trey.”

“Cool. No one else I know has that class,” I said, leaning back and crossing my arms. “It’ll be nice to know I have some sort of solidarity even though he’ll probably make fun of my grammatical errors. He could definitely be a critic.”

Andy laughed. “Hey, maybe you’ve got a class with Dalton,” she said. “That would be ten times better than having class with one of us, right?” I smiled. I really hoped that I did have class with Dalton because then, I could at least put in the effort to make conversation and if I did that, who knows where it could go.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Sure enough, Dalton sauntered into my English class, all high and mighty and full of confidence. He didn’t appear to be too cocky about it but at the same time, it could be misinterpreted and in one way or another, he sort of appeared self-absorbed but that was probably only to the people that didn’t know him. He had his chin lifted so that he could actually look down at people in an intimidating manner and the strong jaw and hypnotizing eyes certainly did justice to any ordinary girl.

Trey walked in with his binder under his arm and sat down next to me. “Well that was a little depressing. I think I just shoved a ninth grader into her own locker.”

I laughed. “It happens to the best of us. Jacoby did that to me when I was a niner.”

“Who’s Jacoby?”

I waved a hand in the air. “Never mind. Did you apologize?”

“I was in a rush. I didn’t have time,” he said.

“That is depressing,” I said, opening my binder and flipping to a blank page. Beside me, I heard the whispering and giggling of two girls trying to keep it down as they discussed Trey’s appearance. I specifically heard the words “hotter than Dalton” and “best in the class”. I snickered and looked up at Trey, giving him a nudge. He turned to face me.

“What?”

“You’ve got some admirers,” I said, nodding over to them. He leaned forward and smiled when they quickly looked away.

“It’s five dollars to stare in public, ladies,” he joked. I covered my face in my hands and laughed.

“What a charmer.”

He fixed his shirt collar, leaned against the back of his chair and crossed his arms. “You know I’m not,” he said. The bell rang and a tall, slim woman with long flowing brown hair walked into the room. Everyone knew that pantsuits weren’t in style anymore and most teenagers just made fun of people who wore them but somehow, this lady was pulling it off. She was a drop-dead stunner.

She shot us all a smile and sat on the edge of her desk, folding her hands on her lap. “Hello everyone. Welcome to grade eleven University English. I’m your teacher Mrs. Hull so if you have problems remembering that, I’m going to judge you a little bit since it’s not even that bad. Now it’s my first year teaching here and I’m still unclear on some of the rules and policies but if you try to confuse me with the stuff that is practically textbook, I’ll ride your ass so hard, you’ll be out the door before you even have a chance to think about it.”

My eyebrows shot up. Trey leaned over to me and whispered, “I guess she’s not very good with first impressions. This woman is scary.”

Mrs. Hull clapped her hands together. “Now one thing I feel very strongly about is that there isn’t any bullying in the classroom and that everyone gets to know their peers.” Someone snorted behind me. “You guys probably haven’t done this before but you’re each going to write a letter to me, telling me a little bit about yourselves.” A series of groans circulated across the classroom but Mrs. Hull didn’t bother to raise her voice. She just lifted a hand, closed her eyes and shook her head. After about ten seconds, everyone was silent again. “No complaining. You’ll see the real reason for it tomorrow. Now, the main rule is that you don’t write your name on it. Just write about yourself, anything you’re comfortable sharing with me and when you’re done, I’ll give you an envelope. You’ll put the letter in there, write your name on that and place it on my desk. Simple, right? Get to work.”

She turned around and walked to the other side of her desk, sitting down in the chair and starting to work on something she needed to get done. I looked over at Trey.

“What kind of things are we supposed to write about? Like . . . favourite colours and stuff?”

He shrugged. “I guess so. She said ‘simple’ so I’m not going to write all that much.” He took out a pen and a piece of paper, starting his letter. I took out my pencil and wrote basic things about myself down like siblings, grades, some of my pet peeves, what I wanted to be when I got older. I didn’t want to go into too much detail because I didn’t see the point so I just stuck to things that weren’t too important. She was still getting to know me, though.

Mrs. Hull came around and handed me a white envelope. I wrote my name in cursive and slipped the letter inside; folding the flap so it would be secure and I wouldn’t have to lick it either. Then I stood up, placed it on her desk and returned to my seat while I waited for everyone else patiently. When the class was finished, she counted the pile, nodded, satisfied, and stood back up again. Her palms were flat on her desk and she leaned toward us like she was going to tell us a secret.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s get to work."

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The next day when Trey and I walked into English class together, our speedy stride slowed down to a drowsy and slightly curious gait. On everyone’s desk laid a single white envelope right in the center.

“Well that’s a little intimidating,” Trey said, sitting down and picking up the envelope, examining it. “There’s a letter in here. Do you think they’re ours?”

Mrs. Hull walked in through the other door and made her way up to her desk in an almost dream-like state. She was looking at all of us with this satisfied smile that told me she was up to something. Once everyone was in their seats and opening their letters, she crossed her arms.

“This isn’t my letter,” one of the girls on my left said. Mrs. Hull nodded.

“Nothing gets past you,” she said sarcastically. “Now listen up; everyone has the letter of another person in the class and from now until the end of the semester, you will be writing to them. I know whose letter everybody has and whenever you reply to them, you’re going to write your name on the bottom corner of the envelope so I can keep track of everyone and make sure your partner gets your letter. You get to keep the ones they send you if you would like to.”

“Wait, I don’t get it,” Dalton said, shaking his head. “What’s the point of this?”

“I told you that I feel strongly about getting to know your peers,” she said. “This is how we did it at the last two schools where I taught and it had a really good outcome. So,” she folded her arms and smiled at us. “Meet your classroom pen pal.”