“Don’t touch it,” I ordered, reaching for the next closest piece of paper.
When I opened it, my stomach burned.
If you like chicks, we can make it happen. I’ll even let you pick.
I reached for the next one.
I want to come all over your tits. Would you be into that?
I grabbed another.
Playing hard to get is only cute for a while. It’s not like everyone hasn’t already seen everything you’ve got.
“Holy fuck,” Charlie whispered as she read it upside down.
I reached for the next one.
One of these days we’ll have to hang out. I’m real good with my tongue. Are you good with yours?
My jaw ached with how hard I was grinding my teeth together, but I couldn’t stop. I grabbed another and everything stopped. It was in Kara’s handwriting.
If you’d just been more like Charlie, none of this would’ve happened. Stop being such a fucking crybaby.
“No,” Charlie said, her voice loud as I stared at that little piece of paper. “No, we need to put this back. Right now.”
I looked up and met her eyes. “If you touch a single fuckin’ piece of paper, I will physically toss you out.”
“It’s my fucking apartment,” she snapped back.
“Don’t give a shit,” I replied seriously.
“Charlie,” Curt said from somewhere behind me. “Come on.”
“No,” she argued. “I’m staying right fucking here.”
I picked up another piece of paper, this one clearly written by a girl.
You’re such a slut.
And another.
You should just quit school. You know you’re going to be a prostitute anyway. Why wait? It’s not like you need to learn math for that? Can’t you count yet?
I went through the notes one by one. Some of them were filthy, some more mild, all of them bad. The ones Kara had written herself were somehow the worst.
Stay away from Curtis, you idiot. He hates you. You deserve it. Just move on.
“Shit,” Curtis said quietly from over my shoulder.
Underneath the letters was a braided bunch of hair with rubber bands at each end. The long hair she’d gotten rid of. A single beaded earring that I remembered, that had gotten twisted up in her hair all the time and we’d have to help her untangle it, but she’d kept wearing anyway because she’d loved them. A daisy chain in a small plastic baggie, withered with time. Another stack of photos, me and her, the five of us—Charlie, Rebel, Curtis, Kara and me—all standing in a line, wearing riding gear and covered in mud, a photo of me jumping off the culvert at our swimming spot, a photo of me laughing, a photo of me mid-sentence talking to someone out of frame, a photo of the two of us smiling with Kara on my shoulders.
I went through every single piece of Kara that had fallen out of the backpack, my heart pounding with each new thing I uncovered. I emptied the rest of the backpack and found the box that had held it all. It was one I’d made in woodshop that I’d carved her name into the top of and given her long before things between us had changed. She’d kept it.
Finally, when the notes were smoothed out in a neat stack and the other little items were set carefully on top of it, I leaned back on my heels.
“I didn’t know she was getting those notes,” Charlie said softly. “She never said anything.”
“Of course she didn’t,” I replied.
Mack had been right when he said that she’d been biding time until I’d gotten out. She had. But the rest of it was so much messier than I’d realized. Somehow our relationship had gotten mixed in with everything else that had happened to her. The box of stuff was proof of that. She kept it all in a box I’d fucking gave her.
No wonder she’d been pushing my ass away.
I flipped the matchbox through my fingers, remembering the night we’d built a fire with it a few weeks before my court date.
“Everythin’ is gonna be fine,” I told her, tightening my arms around her waist. “But if I have to go to jail—”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered, leaning her head back on my shoulder.
“If I do,” I continued, giving her a squeeze, “Curt will look out for you.”
She stiffened slightly. “I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want anyone to mess with you,” I said, resting my chin on the top of her head.
She paused. “They won’t. You worry too much.”
I remembered that little pause vividly.
The little notes hadn’t started after I’d gone to prison. They’d started before and she hadn’t told me. She’d been too afraid of what I’d do.
Kara hadn’t been keeping secrets since I got out. She’d been keeping secrets since before I’d left.
Chapter 17
Kara
“You’re still on my shit list,” Rose said as she wrapped her arms around me from behind and rested her chin on my shoulder. “Even if you’re doing the dishes for me.”