Chapter One
▲
Hello, my gorgeous, incredible, intelligent, funny, sweet, beautiful, kind girlie pop. It’s nice to see you here.
Leora
I’d like to meet.
Four words. Five if you count the contraction as two, which I don’t, because the word counter in Google Docs doesn’t, and I figure Google knows a whole lot more about pretty much anything than I do, so I should probably listen to it.
For instance, Google knows that last sentence wasn’t a run on, but it was way too long anyway.
Most of my thoughts are way too long anyway.
I am what one might call a rambler, should one trust the Google definition of the word. Which, as established, I think one should.
Wolfe Blackwood is not a rambler. By Google definition or any other. Clearly.
I’d like to meet, he says. Just like that. As if it is not the worst idea he’s ever had or ever will have or ever could even conceive of maybe having. As if it’s a thing that could be a Thing.
I fear my friend has lost his mind.
Not only is he messaging in our very special pictures-only Discord server—created for the express purpose of us sharing photos because printing and mailing them in our weekly letters was starting to cost an arm and a leg—but he’s messaging insanity in our pictures-only Discord server.
Has he no respect for these sacred grounds?
Has he no thought for the nerves that run beneath the soft velvet of my deep purple batwing sleeves?
Meet? He wants to meet?
I thought I was going to get a photo of a cute, gap-toothed smile when I opened the app on my laptop.
I thought I was going to have a smattering of pure joy flood my system as my daily dose of Wolfe’s adorable daughter, Amia, filled my screen.
I thought Wolfe was going to stick to the status quo, a quo I very much love to status.
Horrified, terrified, and other -ied words that Google would know but I do not, I scroll up to look at yesterday’s morning photo.
Amia stands on the street in front of Blackwood Brew, their family’s bar that sits beneath Wolfe and Amia’s apartment.
She holds a chalkboard sign declaring it THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!
Her age, grade, favorite color, favorite subject, favorite food, and what she wants to be when she grows up are detailed below the declaration—eight, third, yellow, science, gummy worms, and ‘a author!’.
A frilly sunshine-yellow dress backs up her favorite color claims, and the pack of gummy worms tipping out of her backpack’s side pocket lay truth to her food claim, as well.
She’s the most perfect thing my eyes have ever seen. I love her immeasurably. I look forward to seeing her cutie-pie picture on my screen each morning when I wake up, heralding in another day in a world in which Amia Blackwood exists, shining her gapped smile on any who would accept it.
A smile of my own flirts with my lips before I scroll back down, and it vanishes.
My heart titters.
“None of that,” I mutter. “We aren’t going to do it.”
The stupid thing deflates.
I sigh. “You don’t really want to, anyway.
Wolfe Pen Pal is not likely to be anything at all like Wolfe Real Life.
Wolfe Pen Pal is perfect. He’s sweet and he’s kind and he’s poetic.
He writes us pretty stories when we’re sad.
He sends us photos of his daughter every day because he’s proud of her and because he knows how much we love her.
He compliments us. He listens to us. He doesn’t complain when we send him six pages of jabbering in response to his one. ”
The muscle spasms as if to say, Yes. Exactly.
I shake my head. “Wolfe Real Life is a man, dearheart. A human man.”
It stutters, stops, then beats a slow, mournful rhythm.
“Precisely,” I murmur, frowning at the three words and a contraction (should that make a difference to you). “You see the problem, then.”
She does. I do. Half-blind old man Rory from the grocery store does.
Real life men are the worst.
Even when they present like the absolute best in writing.
Even when they love their daughters with their whole entire heart.
Even when their letters have me waiting by the mailbox for the postman to come.
Even when their words set off shooting stars in my belly.
Even when the way they write tips me head over heels in love with them.
Even when I’ve been tipped head over heels in love with them for over a hundred letters, because the fantasy of their written life is just that good.
Even then.
I’d like to meet.
Heart squeezing, I blacken my screen and pull out my letter supplies. Then, I write the shortest missive Wolfe has or will ever receive from me. With three words, no contractions, I protect my fantasy—and my heart.
Sorry, but no.