Page 80 of The Confidant
DoesThe Confidantemail everyone back?I wondered, surprised that she’d even seen my email.
She most likely didn’t have time to respond to all the emails she got, since she had to receive hundreds of them each week. But this was cool of her to take the time to clarify before advising. Which just went to show why she was the best at what she did.
I checked the clock on the wall as a couple more of my classmates trickled in. We still had about ten minutes before the bell would ring, and since Hunter hadn’t joined me at my table yet, I quickly pulled out my laptop so I could type out a quick response.
* * *
Dear Confidant,
Thank you for your email. I appreciate you taking the time for me since I know you must be extremely busy.
So to answer your question, I haven’t really noticed anything, like, bad happening yet. Just that well…I guess it might be hard to understand if I don’t go into the particulars…
I then proceededto give some of the details about how we’d grown up in the same church. Believed the same things. Wanted the same things out of life.
How we’d both been on the right path: the straight and narrow path.
Then I talked about how Hunter had jumped off the boat recently and that because of what we’d been taught, I was worried that he would become lost and lose his faith in God completely and be in Satan’s power and led down the path of darkness.
I explained a little about what Xander had told me about his friend and how we heard talks in church all the time about people who left and started living recklessly because of it and only found happiness again when they came back to The Fold.
My friend still seems okay for now. He hasn’t completely lost the light in his eyes…but his countenance has dimmed a little.
Hunter walked into the room then, looking like he’d just run all the way here from wherever he’d been going when I’d seen him before breakfast. As he stepped closer, his eyes going to the back of my computer, my heart jackhammered in my chest because I couldn’t have him see what I was writing.
So with trembling fingers, I finished my email with a quick:I hope that makes things a little more clear. Thank you so much for your response again.
There was no time to type out my long pseudonym, so I simply pushed the send button.
Once my computer made the swooshing sound that told me the message had been sent, I closed my laptop and tried not to look like I was internally screaming over the fact that Hunter almost caught me emailingThe Confidant.
That was way too close.
“Hey,” Hunter said, a cautious look in his eyes as he sat next to me.
“Hi,” I said back.
I almost expected that to be the extent of our conversation since that was basically as far as we’d gotten the past few weeks. But instead of distracting himself with opening his backpack and pulling out his notebook and things, he surprised me by asking, “D-did you have a good weekend?”
“It was fine,” I said. “I visited Columbia with my mom. Went to church.”
Saw you flirting with Addison and made a desperate move to writeThe Confidant.
“That’s cool you went to see Columbia,” he said, his eyes lighting up like this was the first he’d heard of it.
Which, I guess it could be if Ava hadn’t told him that was why I wasn’t snowboarding with everyone this weekend.
“Are you any closer to picking a school now?” he asked, a hesitant look in his eyes, like he himself wasn’t sure which place he wanted me to choose.
He’d already confirmed his decision to go to Columbia months ago and had been all for me joining him there at that point. But maybe his hesitant look was because he wasn’t so sure he wanted to go to the same college as me anymore?
“I have a tour of Yale on Saturday, so I think I’ll be ready to make my decision after that,” I said.
“This Saturday?” His dark eyebrows knitted together. “Are you not coming to the basketball finals?”
“That’sthisSaturday?” I asked, realizing that in my desperation to get out of town on the weekends and away from the awkwardness of everything here in Eden Falls, I’d completely overlooked the fact that Hunter would be playing the most important game of his high school career this weekend.
He nodded. “If we win our playoff games this week, that is.”
