P.S. I Like You (33 page)

“He stuck those notes all about his life under a desk!” Isabel pointed out. “Anybody could’ve gotten ahold of them. You could’ve been anyone, Lily, not you. Not kind, loyal, trustworthy you. He got lucky. This could’ve happened to him weeks ago because of his own doing.”

“But it didn’t. It happened now because of me.”

“Well, go explain that to him.”

I looked at my phone again. “He won’t answer me.”

“Then go find him.” She dug her keys out of her pocket and held them out for me. “I’ll have Gabriel pick me up.”

I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed the keys, hugged Isabel, and took off running.

I
had been everywhere. Cade’s house, the kids’ baseball field at the park, In-N-Out, along with every other fast food restaurant I had ever seen him at in the past, as well as the ones where I hadn’t … he wasn’t anywhere. I was now just driving, looking around. Because he was obviously somewhere and it killed me that apparently I didn’t know him well enough to know where that somewhere was.

School was long out by now. I’d texted my sister earlier not to pick me up. Had he gone back to school for practice? Did he go somewhere to think? I drove home. Maybe he’d gone to my house. He liked my house.

His car wasn’t in front when I pulled up, but I checked all the rooms and backyard anyway. He wasn’t here. I didn’t know why I thought he’d come running to me when I was the person he was quite obviously running
from
right now.

I dropped Isabel’s car keys on the floor in my bedroom and collapsed onto my bed, not sure what to do at this point. Just wait for him to text me? I felt like there’d been too much waiting when it came to the two of us and I wasn’t sure we’d survive another session of it.

Wyatt’s head appeared around my partially open door. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“Can I talk to you?” He inched his way into my room, but lingered by the door.

“Sure, come in.” I scooted over on the bed, still on my back, and patted the space next to me. My brother joined me there, lying next to me, staring at the ceiling. When he didn’t say anything I asked, “What’s going on?”

“I hope you don’t hate me.”

I propped myself up on my elbows, worried now. “I don’t hate you. What happened?”

He couldn’t look at me. He stared hard at the ceiling like it wasn’t just an empty white expanse. Like it might actually be telling him something. Judging him. Finally, he spit out, “I was the one who broke your guitar. I’m sorry.”

I sighed and let myself fall back again.

“You hate me now.”

“No, I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. I’m tired. I’ve just had a long day.”

“You’re not mad?”

I was mad and sad and frustrated and feeling very guilty for having blamed Jonah all this time for something he hadn’t done.

“We need to apologize to Jonah, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“Together?” I held up my hand and Wyatt put his against it. His fingers were nearly as long as mine. When had that
happened? “How did you break it, anyway?” Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. The story might only ignite the anger that I didn’t have the energy for right now.

“I fell on it.”

“What? Why was it out of the case?”

Wyatt looked embarrassed. “I wanted to learn how to play … like you.”

I smiled and tousled his hair. “Who taught you the flattery rule?”

“Dad.”

I grabbed him by the arm and helped him off my bed. “Come on. Before you learn how to play, you need to listen to all the music in the world.”

“All of it? That’s a lot.”

“Well, you need to figure out what you like best. First, let’s go talk to Jonah and then I’ll give you a few tracks to start with.”

Wyatt’s foot connected with the keys on the carpet and they flew into the wall with a clunk. He picked them up and held them out for me. “Why do you have Isabel’s car?”

“I had to do something important.”

“Oh. Do you need to go do it?”

I pocketed the keys. “Later. This is important, too.”

I was in the car again. Wyatt and I had apologized to Jonah. I’d found a few perfect songs for Wyatt. And I’d written Cade a
letter. It was all I could think of to do. Now I was going to drop the letter off at his house.

It was a letter that talked about how sorry I was and how all these years I’d misjudged him. How I understood why he’d acted like he had at his birthday party—he’d been waiting for his dad to call and was hurt when he hadn’t. I understood why he tried to help other people when he thought they were hurting by diverting attention, by making people laugh, because that’s how he dealt with his problems. I ended the letter by telling him that I wasn’t going to walk away from him. He couldn’t get rid of me this easily.

I gripped the steering wheel, the letter sitting on the passenger seat, waiting to be read. I wished Cade were sitting in the passenger seat instead.

I was halfway to his house when I realized there was one place I hadn’t looked. The one and only place he had ever taken me—the hotel with the golf course.

I crossed three lanes of traffic to make a U-turn, eliciting a long honk from a black Suburban. I waved but didn’t make eye contact.

Cade was going to be there. He had to be.

I got to the hotel, parked, and followed the path he had led me on that night. I got turned around a few times, but eventually I found the gate. The one he had climbed. It was locked, like it had been that night. The moon was bright tonight and lit the path beyond the gate better than it had when we had been here.

I leaned against the gate and pulled out my phone again.

Are you at the hotel?
I texted.
If you are, I’m here and in 5 minutes I’m going to climb this gate even though I’ll totally get caught … and I’m not sure I can actually climb a gate. And I’m wearing a skirt. Please don’t make me climb this gate.

I stood on my tiptoes and tried to see even a glimpse of the patio where we had sat. I could only see some colorful tips of a potted plant. I tugged on the bars. The gate wasn’t going to open. The top was flat, without pointy spikes like I’d seen on many gates. The kind of points that could impale a person. This was a good thing. But the bars that led up to the top had no horizontal connections. How had Cade climbed it that night?

“I can do this,” I muttered. “After all, I’m the world’s greatest runner now; this should be easy.” I shoved my foot in between a couple of bars to give me my first boost up.

“Are you talking to yourself?”

Relief poured through me as I heard his voice on the other side of the fence. I not so gracefully unwedged my foot from the bars and peered through them at his familiar face. I wanted to throw my arms around him but the fence separated us.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Why?” he asked, his normal Cade smile bright on his face. “I talk to myself frequently.”

“No. You know why.” I wrapped both hands around the bars, using them for support.

He shook his head. “Don’t be. It was Sasha.” He didn’t sound angry but he also hadn’t moved to let me in.

“Are you going to open this? I need to hug you. I can hug you, right?”

“If you can climb that fence, you can do anything you want, baby.” He winked, his flirt voice on. I knew what he was doing—putting up his wall—and I hated it. I hated he felt the need to do that for me.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t treat me like you treat everyone. Don’t hide from me.”

“And you haven’t been hiding from me?” Now his voice had an angry edge to it.

“What do you mean?”

“That song. When were you going to show it to me? When it won the competition?”

“No! Of course not. I wasn’t going to enter that into the competition.”

“Why not? It was really good.”

“It wasn’t meant for anyone to hear. Especially not the entire school.”

“I think you mean, especially not me.”

I started to shake my head, but he was right. I was never going to show him that song.

“You still don’t trust me?”

“I do.”

“You still think of me as the guy who treated Isabel badly. As the guy who’s going to hurt you one day, too. You aren’t willing to be completely open with me.”

“No. That’s not true. Cade, I tell you more than I’ve ever told anyone.” My throat was tight. “You’ve actually helped me find my words. My voice. But I didn’t feel like the words to that song belonged to me. I didn’t feel like I had the right to them.” I retrieved the letter I had written him out of the waistband of my skirt and slid it through the bars.

He gave a breathy laugh. “Another letter?”

“You haven’t gotten one in a while.”

He picked it up from where it had landed in front of him. “Not from you.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Someone else has been writing you letters?” When he didn’t say no right away, I gasped. “Wait. Your dad?”

His eyes snapped to mine and all the pain he’d been hiding since I’d arrived was burning there.

I lowered my voice. “Will you let me in, Cade? Please?”

He stepped forward and opened the gate. I rushed through and flung my arms around him.

“I was just about to read a letter,” he said, close to my ear. “You’re so clingy.”

I smiled. “Stop making jokes and let me be here for you.”

We sat on the patio overlooking the golf course. We each held a letter. I held one addressed to Cade from his dad, and he held the one I’d written earlier.

“I don’t have to read this,” I said again. “If it’s too personal.”

“I want you to. I need objective eyes on it.”

“Okay.” I took a breath, and opened the envelope.

I removed the single sheet of paper that was folded in thirds and carefully opened it. The handwriting looked hurried but I wasn’t familiar with his dad’s handwriting, so it could’ve been his best effort for all I knew.

Cade,

My son, good to hear from you. Life has been busy for both of us, I’m sure.

Already, it felt like his dad was diffusing the blame. I paused and moved one of my hands to Cade’s knee. He didn’t look up. His eyes were on the letter I had written. I continued to read.

A new job where I have to relearn an entire computer system is keeping my mind occupied and between that and family obligations, time seems to get away from me every day.

Ouch. As if Cade wasn’t one of those family obligations.

I’m sure you know how that goes seeing as how you’re basically a grown man already. How’s school? Baseball? Any prospects for college? I’ll have to see if I can get out your way sometime in the next year so we can catch up properly. In the meantime, I’m sure we can both be better about keeping each other updated. Love you.—Dad

I closed my eyes for a moment, then waited for Cade to be done reading my letter. When he was, he gave me a smile and a kiss.

“I needed this,” he told me.

I refolded his dad’s letter and shoved it in the envelope before I gave into the impulse to rip it to shreds.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, handing it back.

“No. Don’t be. He’s right. I could’ve tried harder.”

“Don’t give him permission to pass the blame to you.”

“What do I do?” Cade asked with a sigh.