Love Letters

Dear unknown,

Haha, I can tell I’m going to enjoy exchanging letters with you. It sounds like your dad throws you real hardballs throughout your teenage years, huh? And he did that with your older sister too? I guess your brother got off easy, not that many fathers even worry about what their son is up to. As long as their conversations don’t start with “I had sex with a girl and now she’s pregnant”, I don’t think they even bother to get involved with their lives. The son’s always get let off easily. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to be a girl. What kind of things has he done exactly? Has he gone to any extremes yet or is it just those tiny subtle hints like “it better not be a boy you’re hanging out with after school”?

As for the girl I like, I’ve kept it a secret for years. I don’t think she’s realized it because she probably either thought I didn’t or wouldn’t notice her in that way or she didn’t think about me that way for a while. When I was dating my girlfriend, she was all I could think about but she has no idea.

-Anonymous.

P.S: What about this guy of yours?

Dear Anonymous,

My dad definitely runs a tight ship so it’s kind of hard to spend any time with my friends. He wants me to focus on my school work and studying for every test to a point where I want to jab the pencil into my eye just so I won’t have to read another word. Everything from the last three years is practically drilled into my brain anyway, plus extra stuff that he thinks I need to know but I really don’t. I agree with you about what you said about how father’s are more concerned about their daughter’s activity than their son’s because when my older brother was living with us, my dad pretty much let him do whatever he wanted, whereas my sister and I had his eyes on us with everything we did.

Really, the only possibility of us being able to get out and hang with our friends was to climb out our bedroom windows. We had to create a system when she was still around or when she came home during the summer that when one of us had plans to go out after curfew, the other would say they were going to water the garden but they would actually put the ladder under the window for the other to escape out of and down. After I came to high school, we started to get along so we don’t fight nearly as much—let alone, at all. She’s pretty much my best friend now.

As for the girl you like, that is so sweet! She must be a keeper, eh? How long have you liked her for? Tell me about her! Me, I don’t really have an acclaimed “guy”, just the one I’m interested in. He asked me to tutor him in math so maybe that will lead to something, I don’t know. Fingers crossed, haha. But I’ve gone to school with him for a really long time and from what I remember, he’s very nice and quite sweet, and of course it helps that he is good looking.

-Unknown.

P.S: everything my dad does is to the extreme.

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

“You have to use the Sine Law here,” I said to Dalton, pointing to the angle he was missing. “Cosine Law, I don’t think it will work because you need different side and angle measurements so it’s the Sine of twenty over seven, multiplied by y over the Sine of eighty five. Just remember that it’s cross multiplication.”

We were sitting in his house at the kitchen table while I tried to explain the operations to find the unlisted angles and sides of triangles to him. Dalton sighed and ran a hand through his blond hair. “Man, math is a pain in the ass.”

“I agree,” I said. “Do you get this stuff, though?”

“Pretty much. Seems like review from last year,” he replied.

“It is,” I said, leaning back in the chair. “He’s probably just making sure your class remembers everything and you’re not going to get lost halfway through the course.”

“I’m already lost, to be honest,” he said, laughing. “I hope we don’t do parabolas.”

“What level are you in?” I asked.

“College-U.”

“You probably won’t have to worry about it, then,” I said. “I don’t think anyone uses parabolas in their everyday life anyway. It was a pointless unit and my class spent nearly two months on them. God, I wanted to punch the teacher out.”

Dalton smiled. “I can imagine. That would drive me insane. We only worked on it for about three weeks but it drove us all up the wall anyways.”

I heard the front door open and close suddenly, and I leaned forward. “Are you expecting someone?” I asked. He looked confused and shook his head, moving back to see through the doorway. A tall blond girl walked into the room, her curls bouncing as she took the steps.

“I’m home,” she said, passing right by the table we sat at and going for the fridge. I stared at her, amazed, whereas Dalton was scowling while he looked at her. This girl was a real knockout, absolutely gorgeous. She grabbed a water bottle and then closed the refrigerator door again, doing a double take of me. She gave me a small nod.

“Who’s this?” she asked Dalton.

“My friend Karlee,” he replied. Friend. Well, it was a good start for only beginning to talk with him a week and a half ago. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just visiting,” she replied, looking back at me and narrowing her eyes. “You look really familiar.”

She was right, because she looked familiar too. I tried to figure out where I had seen her before because I knew that I had definitely run into her at least once, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. I shrugged. “Do I?”

“Yeah,” she said, crossing her arms. “I think I know you from somewhere.”

“Maybe,” I replied. “I don’t know where, though.”

“Well whatever. I’m Amanda.”

My eyes widened and my hands dropped from the table to my lap.

Oh God.

“Amanda’s my sister,” Dalton said, frowning. Oh God. “She doesn’t come around often, just kind of walks into the house unexpectedly. I can’t say I enjoy having her around.”

“I’m sure I’ve met you before,” she said, ignoring what Dalton had said and tapping her foot impatiently. “You sure I don’t know you from somewhere?”

“No,” I answered quickly, shaking my head. She raised her eyebrows at me.

“All right. Dalton, I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Have fun,” she practically sang, walking out of the kitchen. Dalton turned to me when she was a safe distance away, and confusion was written all over his face.

“Okay, what’s going on?” he asked. “You obviously know her, so why the secrecy?”

“My sister and your sister had a lot of beef with each other in high school when they were around our age,” I said. Dalton looked to be thinking about it for a little while, still baffled, until it hit him and then eyes went wide.

“Oh my God. Hawthorn? Karlee Hawthorn, as in Christabelle’s little sister?”

“That’s what they call me,” I said, sarcastically.

“I knew I recognized your last name from somewhere. Shit. Amanda’s going to give me hell for this,” he mumbled.

“She holds grudges, I take it.”

“She’s never been able to let one go,” he said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t suggest mentioning it to her that Christabelle is your sister. She’d flip out.”

“Believe me,” I breathed, “I probably won’t ever be talking to her.”

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

“No way!” Christabelle exclaimed on the other line. “You’re not shitting me, are you? Because that’s not funny, that’s just cruel.”

“I’m not kidding,” I said, running a hand through my hair and sitting down on the couch. “This sucks. The one guy I actually really like turns out to be the younger brother of your sworn enemy."

"Wait a second. His last name is, what, Tanner? Hers is Dubois. That doesn't make any sense," she said, sounding confused.

"He told me that she took her mom's last name and he kept his dad's," I replied. "You don’t think they’re like the exact same person, do you?”

“Do you?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well I guess it’s a good thing that you’re tutoring him then,” she said. “Now you’ve got the chance to get to know him. It’s a fifty-fifty chance of him being a sweetheart or being exactly like his sister. If it’s the second one, then you know who to look out for but if not, then I’d say just go for it. The chase for the guy may be exciting but it’s not nearly as good as actually having him for yourself.”

I frowned. “What does that have to do with anything? You’re reflecting on your relationship with Blade, aren’t you?”

She laughed. “A little bit.”

“It would just really bum me out if he turned out to be an exact replica of Amanda,” I said. “I was kind of looking forward to the possibility of pursuing him.”

“Is he single?”

“Just recently.”

“Then pursue him anyway and see what happens,” she said. “But I have to go. Leanne wants me to help her out with some microbiology assignment and I promised her I’d edit her paper. Now that she’s done, I have to spend about two and a half hours reading over the essay. Did I mention? She’s a horrible writer.” She whispered the last part and I laughed.

“Okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

“For sure. Love you.”

“Love you too,” I replied, hanging up and putting the phone down. I went over to the door and slipped on my running shoes, grabbed my key and stepped outside. I walked down the sidewalk to Trey’s house and coincidentally, he only lived about four houses away. It was easy to scare him too, because he never paid attention to when someone walked by his house and after school, he always spent some time alone playing basketball on his driveway. Sure enough, he was standing in front of the net shooting layup after layup.

I stopped at the end of the sidewalk and stuck my hands in my pockets, waiting for him to notice me, if ever. He took a number of steps backwards and took a shot from about twenty feet but it bounced off the rim and rolled right over to me. I put my foot on top of it to stop it from going any further and Trey followed it with his eyes. Trey never wore a shirt when he was playing basketball because he said that the material always got in the way but I had a feeling it was mostly because he was fascinatingly pleased with his body. I couldn’t say I disagreed with him. His back glistened with perspiration, as well as the reflection from the sun hitting him in a very flattering way. His chest rose and fell deeply with every breath he took. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, before putting them on his hips.

“What’s up?” he asked. “I thought you were tutoring Dalton today.”

“I was,” I said. “We both decided it was a better idea if I left early because as it turns out, his older sister is my older sister’s sworn enemy.” I picked up the basketball and dribbled it a little. “What about you? I thought you said you were hanging out with Ruby today.”

He shrugged. “Something came up. She couldn’t make it; no big deal. Here, pass.” He held out his hands for me to give him the ball but I shook my head and he frowned. “Come on.”

“We’ll take turns,” I said, throwing the ball with one hand toward the net and landing a swish. I looked over at Trey and grinned. He rubbed the back of his head.

“I forgot you were good at this,” he said, grabbing the ball and tossing it back to me. “Five bucks says you can’t do it again.”

I raised my eyebrows at him and threw it back at the net, once again landing a perfect goal. Trey’s frown deepened, to which I chuckled at. “Pay up,” I said, holding out my hand and wiggling my fingers.

“All right, double or nothing,” he said, catching the ball and handing it to me again. “There’s no way you can get it three times in a row.”

“You sure you want to take that bet?” I asked, smirking. He nodded and I shrugged, throwing it to the hoop but right when it was about to go in, Trey leaped in the middle and knocked it in the opposite direction. My jaw dropped. “That was in!” I screamed. He smiled and shook his head.

“No it wasn’t.”

“It was so! You’re the biggest cheater ever!” I yelled, going for the ball but he chased me, grabbed me from behind and tossed me onto the grass. I burst out laughing as he stumbled up from his place on top of me because, even though he was a big guy, he always seemed forget that he was horrible at tackling people and staying on his own feet. He always brought himself down with me. He grabbed the basketball and continued taking shots now that I was out of the way.

“You’re violent when you’re in your basketball zone,” I said.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “I know.”

“What’s really going on, Trey?”

He sighed, ran a hand through his damp hair and put the basketball down, coming over to me and plopping down by my side. “Ruby’s kind of been getting on my nerves lately,” he said, holding himself up with his elbows. “I mean, she keeps cancelling our dates to hang out with her friends. Honestly, the last time we hung out together, just the two of us was three weeks ago when I ran into her in town and our parents both ditched us. I understand that everyone needs their space but I should at least be able to see her for more than an hour each day. It’s just unfair.”

“So then not everything is all right like you said,” I observed, looking over at him. He shook his head.

“No, barely anything is,” he said. “It’s just so frustrating. I hang out with you more than her. She’s my girlfriend and she doesn’t even have the common decency to ask me to spend some time with her. I see you pretty much every hour of every day and we talk all of the time. Why isn’t it like that with her, you know?”

I nodded. “Have you told her this?”

“If I did, she probably wouldn’t listen,” he said. “I tried once and she just looked uninterested, like she wanted to be somewhere else. I don’t want to break up with her but at the same time, if this continues, I’m just going to have to. I don’t know, I just . . . I kind of think it has to do something with Dalton. She’s with him a lot.”

“Well they’re like us,” I said. “Except we’re not as close as them.”

“Literally,” he muttered. “Sometimes I just want to punch his face in.”

“You enjoy being spiteful, don’t you?” I asked, smiling.

“Well, yes. I find that it cheers me up.”

“Talk to her, Trey,” I said. “She’s your girlfriend. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

"Do me a favour?" he said. "Don't tell Andy and Pax about this."

I nodded. "You have my word."