Lime and Soda ✓

twenty-two - settle

Tuesday. August the thirteenth. Three weeks until I start college, two until I go home, until another summer at Bea's is over. One until Mum comes back from her retreat, to spend a week with us before we both head home.

The last couple of weeks have, despite being almost completely uneventful, gone so fast I almost missed them. Having someone else in the house, someone I enjoy spending time with, gives me a reason to just stay at home all day. Most days we barely leave the house, except to sometimes go surfing or swimming or to meet up with the others, minus Ross. No one knows what he does nowadays. I don't even know if Astrid knows. The last I heard he'd got in with the older surfers, the ones in their early twenties who go up to the cliffs in the evenings and drink. I know at least a few of them do drugs.

I've seen him once since he dropped me home from the camping trip. He turned up at our door on a rainy afternoon, his dark curls sticking to his damp face, eyes hollowed, and shoved a note into my hands.

'Someone left this for Jay. I haven't read it. Just thought he should have it.' He walked away into the rain before I could think of anything to say in response.

Before I could make a conscious decision, my hands were unfolding the note, smoothing it out. It was crumpled, ripped at the corners, the black letters forming the word Jay bleeding into the white paper, damp from the rain. On the inside, it said:

Dear Jay,

I know I haven't seen you much since we got home from camping. I guess I was upset. I really thought you liked me. More than her, anyway. When you kissed me by the fire, spent that day with me I thought it meant something, I thought you'd decided not to bother with Violet. Now I can see that it was just because of Ross and Violet that you did it. You didn't need me, you just needed someone. I get that now.

Anyway, this whole thing is stupid and writing this is making me cringe so I won't go on. I know that you like her, but I'd be so angry with myself if I just let you go without telling you. I really really like you. You probably know that already, but I do, and if you ever decide you feel the same way, I'll be here.

I hope you're happy with whatever you decide.

Sophia x

I stood there for God knows how long, holding that damp piece of paper until my knuckles went white. Then I ripped it into eight equal pieces, slowly and deliberately, and scattered them into the bin in my bedroom. It was a shitty thing to do, but I did it. I didn't tell him about Ross or the letter. I just kept quiet.

For the next week I kept picturing those words, her handwriting, her heart scrawled on that dirty piece of paper, and every time I thought of it I wondered how desperate she must be to write a love letter to a boy who doesn't love her. Because I'm sure he doesn't. He loves me, right?

I think of the letter as I stand in front of my mirror, brushing my hair back from my face in even, equal strokes, plaiting it into a braid down my back, doing my makeup, and it strikes me that she didn't even know he'd moved out of Ross' when she wrote the note. She left it there for him. She doesn't know he's staying here, doesn't know he's asked me to be his girlfriend. When I realise this I stop picturing her as the bitchy, desperate girl no one loves, and I put myself in her shoes, and what I feel is a loneliness so deep it takes my breath away. I can't imagine what it must be like to watch the boy she likes fall in love with someone else. I've never loved a boy before, and the first time I did I got lucky. I don't imagine it happens the same for most people.

I realise what I've done is wrong, and when Jay is busy playing the guitar with Bea I locate some tape, unearth the pieces of paper from my bin and carefully tape them together again. I put it in an envelope addressed to Jay and leave it on his pillow. When I come back upstairs later, the note's gone. He doesn't mention it to me.