P.S. I Like You(40)

She looked at the floor then back up quickly, but not before I knew the truth. She had broken up with him because of me. Because I couldn’t get along with him. I always suspected that, but she’d always contradicted me. And now I knew for sure.

“Well, I won’t stand in your way anymore,” I snapped. “Go get him back.”

She gasped. “I’m with Gabriel now. I don’t want him back.”

“You just don’t want me to have him.”

“You said you didn’t want him.”

“I don’t.” What was wrong with me? “I need to go.” I headed for her door.

“Lily, wait.”

“I can’t do this right now.”

“We’ll get through this, right?”

“Yes,” I answered right away. “Just not right now.”



It was only eight thirty at night but I was already in bed, staring at my own ceiling now. There were no judging eyes up there, only a blank wall, but I felt just as bad. I sighed.

Why was I so mad at Isabel? I knew one reason—because she’d been lying to me. On purpose. That hurt. Would I ever believe her again?

But … was it more than the lost trust that was bothering me?

Maybe, just maybe, I had wanted her to say it was okay for me to like Cade.

Not that I did. At all.

But in a sense I could understand Isabel’s possessiveness. Two years ago, I’d driven her and Cade apart. I wasn’t a good friend.

The sounds of the house around me were loud—my brothers getting ready for bed in the bathroom next door, my mom yelling to make sure they brushed for two minutes, Ashley laughing on the phone in the hall, my father asking her to keep it down. I forced my eyes closed, listened to the noise of my family instead of the noise in my head. Tomorrow would be better than this day had been. It had to be.





Do you know how disappointing it is to pull out a note expecting a letter from someone, only to see your own handwriting staring back at you? It sucks. You must be sick. Which I’m sure is not very good for you, but think about where that left me. I’m sorry you’re sick. I hope you get better soon.



Okay, so, um that looks like a deformed turtle or something but it was meant to be a bowl of soup. That thing that looks like the turtle’s head is a spoon. Do you see it now? No? I won’t attempt to draw again. I apologize for making you suffer through that and when you’re just recovering from being sick.

Okay, quiz. What music do you listen to when you’re sick? Is it different than or the same as your everyday music? I listen to really sappy music when I’m sick. I don’t know why because I don’t like that music when I’m healthy. Maybe it helps me wallow a little bit more. We need to think of some sappy song lyrics for our fans to listen to when they’re sick. Something like … You thought I was going to make up some song lyrics, didn’t you? I learned my lesson. I’m not.

How’s home life?

I closed my eyes. I would not write back. I would not. The letters were from Cade. He hated me. I hated him.

I folded the letter up and put it back. If I stopped writing he eventually would as well. I needed to stop reading, too. I knew I did. It wasn’t fair to give up on my end of the letter writing but still participate in the reading. The part that, despite knowing who had written it, still gave me a thrill. It still had me nodding my head in agreement and smiling in amusement.

I did not want to relate to Cade. I did not want to find him funny. I knew the other side of him. And I didn’t care why he acted like he did in public. He was old enough not to treat people like garbage, regardless of how he’d been treated by his dad and stepdad.

And I was old enough to be honest and tell him that I couldn’t write anymore.

I took out the two letters that were under the desk, dropped them in my bag, and stared at the empty sheet of paper in front of me. I didn’t have to be mean. I didn’t want to humiliate him or anything, even though that’s exactly what he liked to do to me. I was bigger than that.

I wasn’t sick but thank you for the turtle bowl anyway. It was so awfully drawn that it almost crossed the line that made it art again. Almost. I’ve had a bad couple of days.

Tears pricked my eyes as I wrote that last line. I wanted to tell him everything that happened. I wanted to say, “First I found out that you were you. Then my brother broke the one thing that might’ve helped me deal with that fact, then my best friend and I got into the worst fight of our friendship so she can’t even help me through this.” But I couldn’t. I wondered what advice he’d give me about my brother, about Isabel. This was Cade Jennings. He had millions of friends. Backups for his backups. Isabel was my one.