Alex can tell, just by looking at the letter, that it was a hard one for Zoe to write. There are smudges, and scratches, and… are those tear-stains? all over the page. His heart is thumping loudly, and he wishes Emma would just leave already so he could read it. It’s like the paper is emanating the… the… whatever badness Zoe is going through right now, and he can’t stand that he doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t know how to fix it, or how to help. She’s letting him, finally – he snuck a peek at the first few lines while Emma drove him home, and it says, right there: “I’ll let you help.” His heart sang to read those few words, but as soon as he saw them, he knew he couldn’t read it with Emma there.
Finally, after an excruciating dinner with Rachel and the twins, Emma goes home. Alex excuses himself as quickly as possible and practically flies up to his room, missing the knowing look Rachel has on her face as he darts past and slams his door shut. He climbs awkwardly onto his bed, trying not to use his injured hand, and tears the letter open.
February 26
Alex,
Okay. Okay. I’ll let you help. You’re the best person to ask, actually, but I didn’t want to bring up things that I know you don’t want to talk about, so I’ve been avoiding but you said I didn’t want you to have to
There’s a guy. And I like him. A lot. I think I have for a while, but it just hit me all of a sudden at the worst possible moment.
Alex stops, suddenly dizzy. This… this was not what he’d been expecting. He knew she was upset, and… well, if he was being honest with himself, he’d suspected she had a crush on Kevin for a while now – he’d even teased her about it. But this… this was just the final nail in that coffin. Before she had adamantly denied it, so he’d still entertained the hope that maybe he was wrong. Now? Now he knows better. You don’t confess that you like someone to the person that you like, High School 101.
He closes his eyes, and for a moment he feels like he’s going to be sick. I should have known, he thinks. I should have known that she wouldn’t like me. I mean, how could she when she barely knows me. I can’t compete with the people who are actually there in her life, who can hold her hand when she’s upset over Thom, and can hand her tissues when Michelle dies.
He almost can’t bring himself to keep reading. The only reason he does is because she asks him for help – the one thing he’s been telling her to do all along, the one thing he needs her to do because he’s so fucking needy. He opens his eyes and takes a steadying breath before continuing.
He’s not interested in me. He’s never going to be. But he’s all I can think about, to the point where trying not to let it show is failing spectacularly.
The self-loathing turns into white-hot anger in a flash. How could she think that? What could he possibly have said to make happy, self-confident Zoe feel those things?! He knows those feelings, they’re the ones he has on a daily basis, but she doesn’t deserve them, and Dios if he had the use of both his arms, he would be finding Gabe now and the two of them would go and murder the fucker. How could he?! Feeling useless, helpless and frustrated, Alex turns back to the letter, carefully steadying his shaking limbs so he doesn’t tear the pages.
He doesn’t know how I feel, and I need to keep it that way. But I can tell he’s starting to notice something and I just, I need to know how you’ve done it for so long. Your thing with Emma. I need to know how you took those feelings and set them aside so that you could still be her friend without them getting in the way. Because this guy is going through some stuff, and I need to be able to be there for him, as a friend. Not interacting is not an option.
So tell me how to do it, Alex. Please. Tell me how to flip a switch and turn this off. Or at least push it down and contain it so it stops spilling out at the worst possible moments.
The fight goes out of him at that. This… this is not Zoe. Zoe is not the type to hide her light under a basket and hope it goes away. Sure that’s what he did for so many years, but he doesn’t want that for her, because it will kill her. Like a flower taken away from the sun, she will wilt if she has to do this, and he can’t stand the thought of what she might be like after just a month. One month of hiding, and…
He angrily wipes hot tears from his eyes, wincing at the scrape of the cast along his chin. He is not a crier, but watching her ask him to tell her how to do something that he knows will change her so much, and not being able to do anything but give her what she wants because he… he likes her so much. It’s been a month since he realized he had a crush on her, and yet it gets worse every day instead of better. His crush on Emma was nothing compared to this, and he is grateful every single day that he only has to record letters instead of talk to Zoe in person, because otherwise he thinks she’d probably have figured out how fucking pathetic he is a long time ago.
He sighs. He has to give her what she wants. He has to. He doesn’t know how, but she is asking, and so he has to try. He wipes a tired hand over his wet face and goes back, determined to finish the letter this time.
I thought I was right so long ago – you like him, you tell him, you see what happens. But I know now that you were actually right. If he’s never going to like you back, if being together isn’t even a glimmer of a possibility —
I’m sorry to bring it up, but I need your advice. I know it’s a topic you’d rather avoid, but that’s what I need. I can’t keep going on like this.
I didn’t mean goodbye, Alex. I’m sorry it sounded that way, I was in a hurry, I was trying to wrap up fast, and I guess I just
I didn’t mean goodbye. I couldn’t mean goodbye.
I can’t write about anything else right now. This is taking up so much freaking real estate in my brain. When I have this answer, I can keep going, but right now? This is what I need. This is how you can help. Please tell me how I do this, because I can’t lose him, but I can’t let him see me like this, either.
Zoe
When he finishes reading, he sets the letter aside and lays down on his bed. Everything inside his head is such a mess right now. He’s happy she didn’t mean goodbye, even though he knew she probably didn’t mean it that way in the first place, and he’s happy she’s figured out that he’s pathetic enough to still need her to say it even though he knows better. He’s mad at Kevin for making her like this – he can hear the tears through her writing, even without the three smudged tear-stains, and he hates it, he hates that she is so fucking far from okay right now, and that he is completely fucking helpless. And all of that is swirling around the one most important fact that he learned from reading her letter.
She doesn’t like him.