“You’ll be fine. You’re a smart kid.”
I motioned to the blue gift bag she’d left on the floor next to the other bags. “What’s that?” I asked. “Is it someone’s birthday?”
Her eyes fell on the bag and widened. “Oh! I completely forgot about that,” she said. “It’s not mine. I found it outside your door when I arrived. I figured one of your friends left it there to cheer you up.”
My eyes narrowed as I stared at it. “It wasn’t ticking, was it?” I asked wryly.
Ms. Flores laughed. “No, I think it’s just a gift.” She glanced at her watch. “Anyway, I better head off. I have a meeting in a few minutes.”
When she was gone, I set the coffee down on my nightstand and crouched next to the blue bag, eyes narrowing with suspicion again.
I knew it wasn’t from Adam or Trina. They wouldn’t leave something outside my door like this. It could be from the Medusa girls, though. A sort of good luck gift, seeing as my initiation was happening tomorrow.
I peered inside to see an envelope with my name on the front and a box wrapped in pale blue paper with a silver ribbon around it. The box also had a small card on it, tucked under the center of the ribbon.
I fished it out and opened it to find a message scrawled in distinctly masculine handwriting. Thought you should have one of your own – H
My stomach started churning, and I dropped the card like it was on fire.
It was from Hunter.
For a few tense moments, I simply stared at the gift, unsure if I should open it or not. My curiosity finally won out, and I ripped the wrapping paper off to find a velvety jewelry box beneath. My brows shot up as I opened the box, revealing a sparkling necklace.
The delicate chain was made of silver with tiny glinting diamonds on every second link, and the pendant was in the shape of an L. Not a regular L like my last necklace—well, Lindsay Connery’s necklace—but an elegant calligraphic L. It was inlaid with more diamonds and little violet-colored gems that I could only assume were amethysts. The deep shade of purple would complement my green eyes perfectly.
Hunter obviously knew that. He must’ve selected this piece very carefully in order to appeal to me and tug at my heartstrings, but I couldn’t let it get to me. I had to remain stubborn and refuse to engage with his bullshit, or else he’d worm his way right back into my life.
With my pulse racing, I snapped the jewelry box shut and shoved it in the back of my desk drawer. The envelope went straight in the wastebasket next to my desk, still sealed. I assumed it contained a letter from Hunter, but I didn’t want to read anything he had to say to me.
The only reason I didn’t toss the necklace in the trash as well was that it was too beautiful to discard. I would never wear it—I wouldn’t give Hunter the satisfaction—but I could give it to the next friend I made whose named started with the letter L. Maybe Layla from the Medusa Society could have it if we grew close enough.
I tried my best to put Hunter’s gift out of my mind and spent the next several hours working my ass off. By four o’clock, all of my Friday classwork was done, and I’d also managed to make a serious dent in my weekend homework.
Trina showed up at my door just before five. We had an English test coming up soon, so we’d arranged to spend the evening studying together.
As she unpacked her notebooks and different colored pens, I filled her in on the gift bag Hunter left by my doorstep this morning. Her eyes rolled so far back in her head that she looked like she was auditioning for an Exorcist reboot.
“Please tell me you didn’t read the letter,” she said.
I shook my head and jerked a thumb toward the wastebasket. “Nope. Tossed it straight out.”
She snickered. “Good. The last thing you need right now is any of his bullshit excuses,” she said. She picked up a book and held it out to me. “Anyway… are you ready to critically analyze Jane Eyre, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Heart of Darkness for the billionth time?”
We spent the next two hours going through our old class notes, highlighting the most salient points and discussing them with each other. At seven, my stomach started to grumble, and Trina yawned and stretched out on the carpet. “I think it’s time for us to take a break and order a pizza,” she said, reaching for her phone. “What do you think?”
“I think I’ll die if we don’t order it right this second,” I said with a grin, stretching out next to her.
Twenty minutes later, we were shoveling greasy, cheesy goodness into our mouths as we watched the first episode of The Handmaid’s Tale TV series. It wasn’t exactly proper study, seeing as we were meant to be concentrating on the book, but it still seemed relevant enough for us to not feel guilty about it.
Halfway through the episode, I wiped my hands with a napkin, balled it up, and tossed it into the trash by my desk. As my eyes fell on the wastebasket, there was a fluttering in my chest, and my fingers started tingling.
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to read Hunter’s letter after all. Maybe he’d said something in it that could be construed as evidence against him. An admission of guilt, perhaps. Or an apology, which was basically the same thing.
Or maybe he’d written something that would blow everything out of the water and prove that I was wrong about him this whole time. Maybe he was actually innocent all along…
I knew I was heading down a dangerous path, but I couldn’t stop my thoughts from veering that way. Unable to contain my curiosity for a minute longer, I used another napkin to wipe my mouth, and then I padded over to the wastebasket and crouched to drop it in. With furrowed brows, I looked around for the envelope, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. It must’ve slipped beneath the other stuff.
“What are you doing?” Trina asked, glancing over at me.
“Just throwing away the used napkins,” I said lightly.
She returned her gaze to the TV, and I quickly rummaged through the papers in the wastebasket. It was all old notes and a few gum wrappers. No envelope.
“You’re looking for the letter, aren’t you?” Trina asked, looking over at me again.
My face turned hot. “Um… maybe.”
“Laney, you can’t read it.”
“I know I shouldn’t, but I thought—”
She cut me off. “No, I mean you literally can’t. It’s gone.”
“Huh?”
She held up her palms and bit her bottom lip. “Don’t be mad, okay?” she said in a timid tone, cheeks flushing pink.
I sighed. “You got rid of it, didn’t you?”
“Uh-huh. I knew you’d get curious eventually, so I thought I should destroy it before you did.”
“How?” I asked, brows rising. I hadn’t even noticed her go into the wastebasket at all.
“When I needed to pee earlier, I went to your desk to grab the keycard for the bathroom, and I saw the letter sitting right there in the trash can. I took it into the bathroom with me, ripped it up, and flushed it down the toilet.”
“So now I’ll never know what it said.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking stricken. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“It’s okay,” I murmured, padding back over to her. “I get it.”