He grabs his neck and rubs before raising one eyebrow and looking at me. “I think you might be right about my girl crew, and I’m not so sure they like you—I’m sort of their territory,” he teases.
There’s a long, comfortable silence between us, and my fingers tingle, wanting to touch him. I leave them wrapped in the comfort of his cotton sleeves though, and instead let the flurry of butterflies run around the inside of my body. It’s nice to feel something different—I think this is joy. It’s definitely anticipation.
“Move in with me,” Andrew says, and the butterflies inside me all start running into each other, my heart speeding up and my hands forming tight fists as my nails dig into my own palms. My eyes must have given me away, because Andrew kicks his foot into mine again. “No, no…I just mean…you need somewhere to go, and I know Trent won’t mind. Just until I get things worked out with you and Lindsey. We’re close to campus, and I’d like…” he swallows hard. “I’d like to have you there, to know you’re safe.”
Our eyes hold onto each other, and our breathing falls into sync.
“Okay,” I whisper, my lips tingling, not sure if they should smile or cry a little. “Okay,” I nod again, maybe reassuring myself. “I’ll grab some things this morning, while she’s in class. I have class today, so I won’t be at your house until late this afternoon. Is that…is that okay?”
“That’s fine. Here,” he says, reaching into his pocket and sliding a key from his ring. “I’m heading right to practice from here, and I’ll just get in with Trent later and make a copy for myself.”
“Don’t you have class?” I ask.
Andrew shakes his head, laughing through a shrug. “I’ll go tomorrow. It’s fine. I’ve already done most of my work for the semester,” he says.
“Nerd,” I tease.
“Among many other things,” he says, his smile a little sad.
“Many good things,” I say. I hope my words make him smile, but he only breathes in deeply, shaking off my compliment.
“Maybe someday. I’m working on it,” he says.
I want to tell him he’s already there, and to thank him for taking care of me, but the doors burst open behind me and several boys come running, two of them grabbing onto Andrew’s right arm when they reach him, climbing him like a jungle gym. A few of the parents are standing behind me, waiting to talk to him, so I just hold up his key and suck in my lower lip as I smile.
I take the long route to my apartment—my old apartment—and Lindsey is gone by the time I get there. I pull a few bags from under my bed and fill them with most of my clothes, thankful Andrew seemed to grab many of my necessities last night. When I glance at my desk, I realize my letters and backpack are also gone, and my body jolts with a shot of adrenaline. I panic at first that something happened—that during their talk, Lindsey discovered them, destroyed them, that they’re gone. But my backpack is gone, which means Andrew must have seen them and brought that to his apartment too.
Andrew saw them.
I pause at that thought, not sure if it’s good or bad. He wrote them for me, but now that we’re both aware of the words he wrote—or at least many of the words he wrote—something deeply personal feels like it’s settled in between us.
Lindsey will be gone for several hours—today is one of her longest, and though I used to wait desperately for her to get home so we could have dinner together, I’m grateful for the time now. I sit on my bed and pull my phone out of my purse, dialing on rote and in a trance. When my father answers on the other end, I’m not ready to speak—my mind still caught between being angry over the letters he kept from me and wanting to run to his familiar embrace after what Graham did. He waits me out, though.
“You get my package?” he finally asks. I nod even though he can’t hear me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t give it to you sooner,” he says, and I hear him swallow, hear him thinking of ways to explain.
“Why?” I ask, a tear forming in the tender corner of my right eye. I pull the bottom of Andrew’s shirt up to dry it.
“Your mom wanted to give them to you,” he says, and knowing that makes me feel both grateful and terrible at once. “She made me save them. I threw the first one away, and she went out to the trash by the curb and pulled it from the bag.”
My dad laughs, but it’s a sad sound that comes out—one made of memories and repentances. “She told me it was a federal offense,” he laughs through a cry. I join him, wiping away another tear, this one for that memory of my mom. “She said that any boy who took the time to write a letter, to mail it, with a stamp and everything, was worth rescuing. But I was so afraid of what might happen if Andrew wasn’t worthy of you. I was afraid he would take you away—and not that he’d make you run away, but pull you away from us. His home life was so…”