But even though I knew who it was, I still couldn’t call him out like that. Because he could still tell the dean about Leo and me, and that was really the main concern here. That was the one thing that I couldn’t let happen.
When I got back to the apartment, I went into the living room and got my laptop out. It was very tempting to at least send an email to that address, maybe the only thing being the subject line saying HI, SETH or something like that.
When Leo got home, he came in, whistling, carrying two bags of groceries. “I was thinking I’d make Fettuccine Alfredo,” he called from the kitchen. “How does that sound?”
“That’d be great.”
I set my laptop on the couch cushion and got up, carrying Seth’s paper with me. “How was your day?”
He came over and gave me a kiss. “It was good. How was yours?”
“Mostly good. I found out something interesting today.”
“Oh yeah?” He went back over to the counter and pulled a container of strawberries out from one of the grocery bags. “And what might that be?”
“I know who’s sending me those letters,” I said.
He paused, his hand on the refrigerator door handle. “Who?”
“Seth.”
“Seth Douglass?”
“Yeah, him.”
Leo raised an eyebrow skeptically. “How do you know that? Why would Seth do that? He doesn’t really seem like he’d have the forethought to do something like that.”
I held the paper out. “Because this came flying out of his backpack today when he and Nick were horsing around.”
Leo put the strawberries down and took the paper, reading the first few lines. “Ah,” he said. He put the paper down. “You know, it kind of surprises me that his teacher for this class doesn’t realize there’s no way in hell that Seth would have written something like this. Mainly because it’s coherent and very well written.”
“Maybe the teaching assistant is grading it.”
“Even if it was the teaching assistant, I think anyone who was actually capable of reading words would know that Seth Douglass didn’t write this. For fuck’s sake! Well. Now you know who did it.”
“I know. But does that really change anything? I mean, I’ve still got to write that last assignment.”
“Fuck that,” Leo said, shaking his head. “You’re not writing the next paper. Are you kidding me? Now that we know who is behind this? No fucking chance.”
“I want to, though,” I said. And I did, because suddenly I had an idea. I knew exactly the article I was going to write.
“Are you serious?” Leo asked. “You want to? Why? Why the hell do you want to help him out any more than you already have? You are way nicer of a person than I ever could be. Seth better hope I don’t run into him because I’ll probably fucking deck him.”
“No you won’t,” I said. “Because that would probably get you into more trouble than anything that we’re doing here. No, I have a plan.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“I’ll show you. When I’m done with it.”
I could tell he was wishing I just would’ve given him the okay to go kick Seth’s ass, but that wasn’t how I wanted to handle it.
He shook his head. “It might be Seth that’s reaping the benefit from this,” he said, “but it wasn’t him who had the idea for it. No fucking way.”
“Really?”
He stopped and looked at me, raising his eyebrows. “You might not know Seth that well, but I don’t think he’d really have the forethought to do something like this. The fact that the letters you’ve gotten haven’t had any typos makes it blatantly fucking obvious that there is no way Seth wrote these himself.”
“So who, then?”