Surviving Valencia

“How could you have kept this from me?” I had a faint notion that I was being hypocritical but I didn’t care.

“You’re right. I absolutely should have told you.”

“I mean, really, Adrian. It involves me.”

“You’re right.”

“You should have said something.”

“I know. I guess I was under the impression, though, that you may have already known,” he said, locking eyes with me for a moment.

“Why would you think that I knew? I didn’t know! I had no idea.”

“Because of the way you were acting so strangely about the mail when we got back from staying at Alexa’s.”

I shrugged.

“You know, most things like this just pass and are forgotten,” he continued, “and life goes on like it never happened.”

“Most things like this?”

“I just meant that most things pass, and everything works out fine.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“Well,” said Adrian, falsely cheerful, “if Bob Chance is who he says he is, that means I got a write up in the Grand Forks newspaper that I didn’t even know about. That’s pretty cool.”

“But sad that no one tried to contact you for an interview. What kind of reporting is that?”

“True. No one gives a hundred percent anymore.”

Adrian turned down a street I did not know, and put the windows down. “Nice evening it’s turning out to be, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I said, amazed at the banal turn of our conversation. I wasn’t having it. “Do you have anyone in your past who would want to do something bad to us?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“Where are the letters postmarked from?” I asked.

Adrian gave me a peculiar, sideways glance. “Um, I don’t know if I looked.”

“Really,” I said, unable to keep out the incredulous edge.

“Really.”

“Will you let me know if you get any more?”

“Yes.”

“Promise me?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

I looked at his sweet, sad face. He was tired and the streetlights caught lines on his face I normally didn’t notice. The vulnerability I saw in him gave me power I rarely felt and I reached out for him, touching his arm, hit be an unexpected wave of love.

He could not have done it. Here he was, telling me all about the other letters. He’d only been hiding them to protect me. I needed to tell him I’d been intersecting the letters too and that what I had found was not the work of ‘bored kids.’ But my head pounded so ferociously I thought I might be sick. I could taste mint chocolate chip rising in the back of my throat. I pressed my hands to my face to keep my head from exploding.

We were approaching our house again. He turned into the driveway.