Page 96 of Bring me Back
I forgot to tell you. They called me Jell-O for a whole year at college after a party where I had so many Jell-O shots my tongue turned blue. I used to live with these two guys, Anthony and Darryl, both jocks too, don’t judge too hard, Cricket. I still talk to them. We try our best to see each other every couple of months for a beer. They are stupid as fuck. Can’t wait for you to meet them.
Love, Dan
The days went by, and the notes kept coming. I found an old hatbox, beautiful and vintage, and used to keep all my letters.
“We can stuff them all in the wall,” Nova said once. Her fingers danced over the lid of my box.
She never asked to read them, but like Mrs. Carr, she thought they were terribly romantic.
“Stuff them in the wall?” I asked as I took the box and put it back in my wardrobe, turning after to sit in bed beside her.
“Like letters to Juliet? They do that in Verona. People bring love letters just like those and leave there.”
“I think he wants me to read them.”
“I think he wants you back.” She arched an eyebrow.
“He said it isn’t about that,” my cheeks got warm as I said it. “It’s about me getting to know him better.”
Nova rolled her eyes and dropped dramatically on my bed. “And why would he want you to get to know him? AndI’mthe high school kid.”
Besides my wait and love for Dan’s letters, things around town changed too.
Not everyone believed my version of things. After all, I was the strange kid who barely talked, and Katie was the town’s sweetheart. But more murmurs came to light when the school board closed around Anderson. After talking to me, they took all names I provided and asked me point-blank if Anderson knew what had happened. I told them the truth. I had nothing to hide anymore. After that, Ryan was fired, and Anderson, too.
In the days after Anderson was officially out of the school, validating my version of the events, the gossip picked up a bit.
Little by little, all kinds of kids started to come to me while I was working at Torres’, telling me their own bullying stories. It bothered me at first. I wasn’t a therapist or a people’s person, but like Marian pointed out, “Sometimes people just want to say it out loud.”
I nodded, still waving to the woman who just told me her horribly specific and traumatic story.
“It feels too intimate of a conversation to have with a stranger.”
“Probably.” Marian shrugged. “But you’re their hero now.”
She turned to the kitchen, and I followed her steps. “I don’t want to be anyone’s hero.”
“The Unseen Queen,” Marian mocked. “The Master of the Silent.”
“The Misfit Rebel,” Torres quipped.
I groaned. “Stop you two.”
“Bluehaven is a town that thrives on status, Hallie,” Marian interjected, serious for the first time. “It has always been. It’s small, and prides itself in the beauty of the damn beach and the big houses… you know how it is. That was before you were even born. Cecilia and I used to laugh at how we were the zit in Bluehaven’s perfect skin.”
I frowned, hugging myself.
“This is the other side of Bluehaven you haven’t met yet. But it was always there. You were the first to scream, but you won’t be the last.”
Maybe my name should be theReluctantRebel. Then Marian fished a note from her apron and extended her hand to me. I perked up straight away, my eyes with a shine that was impossible to hide.
“Man’s got it bad, Hallie.”
I think I enjoy teaching. I never thought about it because the job landed on my lap, but I think that’s part of me.
I still want to do furniture, and the other day I started to work on something else. I don’t know what it is yet, but I know it isn’t furniture. I never let myself build something without a reason. I usually make a chair when a chair is needed.
Letting it go like that comes from you. I watched your face many days while you were sewing, so engrossed in your work. There’s a passion there, a need that comes from who you are. It’s primal to you and becomes clear to anyone who’s watching. I want to be like that. I want to hold in my hands a piece of my soul.