I drop my backpack by the foot of my bed before sitting on the upholstered bench and carefully sliding my finger under the flap of the envelope. I’m impatient enough to tear it open, but I don’t want to risk ripping the return address on the off chance he didn’t send me a blank page or a curt,Don’t contact me again.
I slide the folded sheet out as carefully as I opened the envelope, my heart doing a tiny stutter, like the beat equivalent of a jump for joy, when I note there are many lines of writing, not just none or one. His handwriting is neat and deliberate. All uppercase. Like his truck, it fits him—solid and decisive.
Wren,
Hi back.
Not many people take their boats out after Labor Day, but I work at the marina through October. There’s a lot of work to be done in the fall, storing boats and docks so that everything is all set for the winter. You’re right. I prefer it this time of year. Gus, Wade (brown hair, he invited you to the party), and a few other guys are still working too. It’s fun but quiet. I guess I’m just used to it. Sort of the calm after the storm, as the saying goes.
I went bluffing last weekend. The water is warmest now, but the waves were rough. It felt like I was swimming against the current, heading to shore, but I made it in fine. I’ll probably go a couple more times before it gets too cold.
I got my fill of rich-people parties on the Fourth, but Wade and Cammie hosted a couple more normal ones in August.
For someone who knows shit about boats, you’re really good at drawing. If that was from memory, I’m fucking impressed. Actually, I’m impressed either way.
If you want to pass English with a clear conscience, tell me more about New York and all the suck-ups you know.
—Sawyer
Sawyer Bennett
23 Church St.
Montauk, NY 11937
I didn’t have to save the envelope. He made sure I could write him back regardless of how carelessly I opened it.
And I don’t realize, until my cheeks start aching, that I haven’t stopped smiling since I read his name.
11
Sawyer,
Fine, you were right about?—
“Yo, Cap! You home?”
I drop Wren’s letter into an open drawer on my desk, sliding it shut with my knee seconds before Gus fills the doorway.
“No,” I drawl, leaning back in the chair until the first two legs lift off the ground. “Someone kidnapped me and left my truck outside for the cops to fight over.”
They wouldn’t spend much time searching for a Bennett.
“If you got kidnapped and—I’m presuming—murdered, wouldn’t you gift your truck to your best friend?”
Gus’s mode of transportation is a bike. He’s earned as much at the marina as I have, but unlike me, he plans to go to college. Every cent he earns gets deposited into a fund that should get him througha couple of semesters at the local community college Cammie attends. Unless you want to pile the expense of room and board on top of tuition fees, it’s the best option around here.
“Sure, after I haunted you for being happy I was murdered since you got a free car out of it.”
We share a quick grin before Gus’s attention shifts to my desk. “You’re doing homework? For real?”
I’m what teachers like to refer to as “wasted potential.” I’m smart. School has always come easily. I can ace tests based on paying attention in class, even if I never bother to study the material at home. But right when grades started to really matter, it felt like nothing in life made sense, and my scores on everything skydived. Sympathy and pity only stretch so far before people stop making excuses, and my GPA was unsalvageable by then anyway. I do enough to ensure I’ll graduate, and that’s about it. I doubt Gus or my other friends even remember the days when I wouldn’t skip occasionally or was the sole student to make High Honor Roll each semester.
When I shrug a shoulder and say, “Not really,” Gus doesn’t look the least bit surprised.
He would look shocked if I mentioned what I was doing—reading Wren’s latest letter.
We’ve been writing back and forth for weeks—months. Before September, I hadn’t written a letter since the final Christmas I believed in Santa Claus.
