Page 20 of More Than Pen Pals

“Absolutely not.” She shakes her head vigorously. “The day after I got your letter, I went to Missouri for two weeks, and I showed Aunt Star your picture and the letter. She told me in no uncertain terms I needed to tell you I was a girl and also tell my parents about it. I never told her I didn’t. Well, not until a few hours ago.”

“And what did she say? Today, I mean.”

“She told me to give you time to process everything before trying to compel you to talk to me. And I was going to give you that time, until …,” she waves her arm around to indicate our current situation.

“Right.”

Her aunt gave her solid advice, but now that we’re here, I’m glad Wendy forced our hands. If she hadn’t, I’d still be stewing and probably despising Leslie more and more by the minute, but now I’m not. While I don’t know if I would’ve made the same choice she did back then, I can understand why she did it.

“You didn’t tell Shannon the truth?” I ask.

“No. It was weird not telling him something this big, but I knew he’d make fun of me if he knew I was writing to a boy.”

I can relate to that.

She continues, “Shannon had a pen pal, too, for about four months. He hated it, so as soon as fourth grade was over and our teachers didn’t require it anymore, he was done.” She shakes her head. “He stopped writing to the other kid with no explanation. I was so annoyed with him.”

That feels like a kick to the gut, although I’m sure she didn’t mean it to be. “I’m sorry I did that to you.”

“Oh!” Her hand goes to her mouth. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“I know you weren’t. But I’m still sorry.”

She leans toward me, eyes locked on mine. “And I’m sorry. For all of it. I truly am.” Her eyes fill with tears again. “Please believe me, Ash.”

This time I do reach across to swipe a tear from her cheek. Her head jerks at my approach, but she doesn’t pull away from my touch. My fingers tingle as I bring my hand back to my side of the table without breaking eye contact.

“I believe you. And I forgive you.”

Her apology is sincere, and I’m positive she’s not lying to me now. And back then, she was a kid who made a dumb decision that snowballed into something she eventually couldn’t control. We’ve all done that in some capacity. I hope my willingness to forgive her so easily has nothing to do with how bewitching she looks in the candlelight or how her accent is more pronounced when she’s emotional.

“You really forgive me?” She dabs her eyes with her napkin.

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” she says wholeheartedly.

“You’re welcome. And thanks for telling me the truth. I know it wasn’t easy.”

She nods and takes a shaky breath. “Can I ask you a question now?”

“Sure.”

“If I had told you about the gender mix-up when I figured it out, would you have kept writing to me?”

eleven

Now that the hard part is over, Ash visibly relaxes. He puts an elbow on the table and props his chin on his hand as his eyes roam over my face, study my mouth, and fleetingly dip lower. I force myself not to squirm under his perusal, but my skin heats up a few degrees.

“Even at ten, I had a crush on you,” he says.

“What?” I squeak out and then cover my mouth, embarrassed by the high pitch of my voice.

He grins at me. “Of course, I thought you were Les’s cute twin sister Shannon.” He cocks his head to the side. “Though I guess all the things you told me about Shannon were about your brother—not the girl in the picture—and everything you told me about yourself was aboutyou—not the boy in the picture—so maybe I had a crush on your brother.”

I try to hold in my laughter, but I can’t, and neither can he. We receive another round of glares from the surrounding tables, but I don’t care, and he doesn’t seem to either.

“To answer your question,” he finally says, “I think I would’ve kept writing to you. But I wouldn’t have told my family you were a girl. Randall would’ve never let me live it down. My dad never even knew I had a pen pal. Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t approve of the idea of me writing to a stranger. Mom probably wouldn’t have cared either way, but I wouldn’t have wanted to find out.”

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