It starts with a simple question.
“So, are you and your penpal having a fight, or have you just changed the days you’re writing to him?”
Zoe’s not paying attention. She’s aware he said something, but not what it was. She finishes the note she’s writing on Anti-Semitism in Shakepeare’s day before she pulls her eyes away from the book and focuses on Kevin. He’s, well, lounging is the best word for his posture. He’s draped across the chair on the other side of the table, really a pretty impressive feat considering that the chair doesn’t have arms.
She intends to ask him to repeat himself, but what comes out is, “Don’t you ever have work to do?” Because he’s not working. He’s tossing a small rubber ball back and forth in his hands, but he’s not working. And she doesn’t think she’s seen him pull out a schoolbook once in the time she’s known him.
He grins. “I arranged my schedule this year to have two study halls.”
“What?” Zoe asks indignantly. “Two study halls? How is that fair?”
He shrugs. “Don’t blame me because you don’t have my genius forethought,” he says. But then he laughs and shakes his head. “Nah, I took a ton of summer classes to clear up my schedule this year as much as possible. The more work I could get done at school, the more time I’d have to take care of Gramps in the afternoons.”
Zoe sobers and nods. “I shouldn’t have made fun.”
But he waves the concern away. “Don’t even worry about it, Zoe,” he says.
“You asked me something a second ago,” she says, getting back on track.
“Yeah, I asked about your penpal. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you working on a letter.” Zoe frowns.
“It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a letter,” she says, and that’s — huh. That’s curious. Like, in the back of her mind, she was aware it had been a few days, but she’s been so swamped that she hasn’t noticed just how long it had been since she’d been in touch with Alex. “When did I get the last one?” she mutters, mostly to herself.
She fishes her planner out of her backpack and pulls his last letter from the back. Her frown deepens. “January 23rd,” she mutters. “That was, like, a week and a half ago. I wonder what’s going on.”
“Maybe he’s been as busy as you have,” Kevin says.
“Yeah,” she says, distracted, skimming his letter. “He didn’t say anything about being busy, though, or needing a break.”
It’s weird, she doesn’t remember a lot about this letter. Like, she remembers reading it, but she doesn’t remember how she replied to most of the stuff on the first page. Maybe she decided not to dignify his slights at Kevin with a response?
“So what do you do, if the other one doesn’t write for a while?” Kevin is asking. “Do you have some sort of, I don’t know, back up plan?”
“We could pass messages through the baristas, I guess,” she says, still distracted. “Or, I don’t know, his step-mom owns the coffee shop, so if worse comes to worse, I can check in with her. But that would be kind of awkward.”
She’s on the second page now, and she doesn’t remember replying to any of this. Was she really that distracted when she wrote her last letter? Did she really have so little to talk about that it didn’t make an impression? Or —
“No,” she breathes out on a whisper as the reality of the situation hits her and fills her with cold dread. “No, no, no, no, no, not possible, I’m not that much of an idiot.”
“What?” Kevin says, voice concerned. He even plants his feet on the floor and sits up straight. “What is it?”
“I didn’t reply to this,” she says, eyes moving frantically over his words, becoming more and more certain with each passing moment. “It’s not his turn, it’s mine. Shit. Shit.”
“Hey,” Kevin says gently. “Look, you got swamped with school. He’ll understand. Just write him a letter now and explain.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t get it,” she tells him. “We just talked about—” She stops herself before she reveals some personal information about Alex that really isn’t hers to share. “We talked about how much it sucks to be abandoned, even unintentionally,” she amends, leaving out the way she knows he’s going to react to this. “And then I don’t write for a week and a half?”
“Zoe, the guy’s not gonna think you abandoned him because you didn’t reply right away. It was an honest mistake. He’ll get that.” She wishes she could believe that, but she knows more than Kevin does, and she knows just how badly she’s screwed up. “And if he doesn’t,” Kevin continues, “if he actually holds this against you? Then he’s probably not the kind of guy you should spend a lot of time with anyway.”
The concern, though she doesn’t share it with Kevin, isn’t that Alex is going to hold this against her. The concern is that he’s going to use this as evidence that, despite all her protestations to the contrary, she is getting tired of him and has just been too nice to say so.
I will never just up and stop writing, that’s what she’d promised him in her last letter, and then she turned around and did exactly that. Her timing could not have been worse.
God, how the hell does she even fix this? The problem isn’t that he’s going to be mad at her, the problem is that he’s not going to trust her anymore, and not in an angry How dare you betray me! way, but in a It’s fine, I always knew this was inevitable despite everything you said way, which is much, much worse, because how does she counter that? He won’t blame her for this — that’s the problem. He won’t blame her, he’ll blame himself. He will be convinced that he chased her away. And Zoe doesn’t know if there’s anything she can say or do to take that belief away from him.
She has royally and thoroughly screwed up.
The entire first page and a half of the letter she immediately begins writing is a frantic, rambling, stream-of-consciousness apology, before she gets control of herself and tries to write the rest as normally as possible.
On her way home from the HCC, she stops by Cuppa Joe’s and buys a $15 gift card, which she tucks inside the folded up letter with a note that read, I know it doesn’t make up for anything, but this week’s coffee is on me.
“Uh oh,” Andi says, reading the note upside down. “You’re not in the doghouse, are you?”
Zoe shakes her head. “I didn’t write for a week,” she admits, guilt-ridden and anxious.
“You know, I wondered,” Andi says.
“I just got so busy! School has been nuts.”
“Hey, you don’t have to tell me,” Andi says, stowing the letter under the counter. “This does explain why Alex has looked like a dejected puppy every time I’ve seen him recently.”
Zoe grabs at Andi’s wrist, stricken. “He hasn’t actually, has he?” she pleads, desperate for a negative answer, but the look on Andi’s face is answer enough.
“He has seemed pretty down, but I’m sure that could be about anything.”
“Ugh, I am such a monumental idiot,” Zoe groans.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Andi tries to reassure her, but Zoe is not reassured. Andi, bizarrely, looks back and forth for a second before leaning over the counter and speaking in a low voice. “Look,” she says, and Zoe has to lean in close to hear. “I’m not working tomorrow, but I’ll try and spread the word around that whoever gives him this should make sure he knows how worried you are, okay?”
Zoe manages a smile. “Thanks, Andi.”
“Hey,” Andi says with a wave of her hand. “Anything for you two.”
february-2