Don't Kiss the Messenger (Edgelake High School, #1)(70)

“It’s none of my business,” she said.

“Read it,” I insisted, and pushed the phone toward her. She took it out of my hand and looked at the screen. She paced across the living room and read it out loud.

“I try not to write to you. I try not to think about you. But it’s like trying not to wake up.”

I stared at her while she read. That voice. More pieces were fitting together.

“You are something to look forward to, like seasons, like a change from a life that’s black and white to a world budding with color. How can I not write you? What the alphabet is to writing, what notes are to music, what numerals are to math, you are to me. Essential.”

She stared down at the words, words she couldn’t delete, couldn’t take back. Guilt flooded her face. She looked up at me.

“Well?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. “What do you think?”

I watched her carefully.

She looked down at her own writing. “It’s…it’s okay,” she sputtered helplessly. She could accurately estimate the power needed to send a space craft to the moon and back. But she couldn’t explain herself out of this. She was caught in a trap, her leg hooked. The cage door slammed shut.

I waited, enjoying watching her struggle. She started pacing around the room again, and I followed her. I wasn’t letting her escape.

“Um,” she stalled, and looked back down at the writing like she was critiquing it. “I might have changed the first sentence.” She pointed to the screen and I caught up to her. We stood in the center of the room. The heat from her skin waved toward me.

Time to really lay it on.

“I got a text from Bryn this morning.” I grabbed my phone and opened the text messages. “Read it.”

She knew better than to argue. She took the phone from my hand and read the text out loud.

“Hey, Emmett. It’s Bryn. So, lately I’ve been spending a lot of time with Prentice, you know, the rower? We really hit it off. We have a lot in common. Anyway, we want to start dating. I’m sorry! I hope you and I can still be friends. Have a great Christmas break!!!”

She stared at the phone with disbelief, but then her eyes widened, like she was piecing a riddle together.

“What? I don’t believe this.” She looked up at me. “Well, she could have at least told you that—”

“There’s more,” I said. I circled my finger in the air, gesturing for her to keep reading. She scrolled down.

“One more thing.”

I watched her carefully, reading her as she read my message. She cleared her throat and continued.

“I think you should know that I didn’t write any of those emails. All the emails I sent you, those were all from CeCe.”

She paused, like her words were suddenly caught behind her teeth. She continued reading the text, but it took effort, like she had to force the words out of her mouth.

“She wrote them, pretending to be me. Please don’t be mad, she was just trying to help.”

CeCe looked down at the phone, like a thief caught in the act of a robbery. Only she hadn’t been robbing material things. She had been robbing feelings and emotions. All my anger was resurfacing, like water hitting the boiling point.

She handed the phone back to me and I shoved it in my pocket.

“Is it true?” I asked. My hands clenched into fists.

“I—”

“You know, if you two were going to fuck with me, you could have at least organized your messages a little better,” I said, my voice sharp.

She lifted her shoulders and helplessly tried to piece words together.

“All those emails? You wrote them?” I asked.

She nodded slowly.

“Yes.”

I rubbed my fingers over my forehead. “What about the texts? Were those from you, too?”

“Probably, most of them.” She nodded.

So that was it. This had all been CeCe. Nothing had been real. It was all a fucking joke. It hurt. It hurt knowing my favorite part of Bryn, all along, had been her. But it was more than that. Our emails together had been the best part of this year. They helped me to start over. They made me happy for the first time since my dad died. CeCe had helped me to move on, to reclaim my life. All along, she had been my muse.

I started pacing around the room seeing nothing and everything.

“You used Bryn,” I said.

“She asked me to do it,” CeCe argued. “She was trying to break the ice with you.”

“Break the ice?” I yelled. “Why did you agree to help her?”

“I thought it would just be this one time, this one text. You made her nervous.”

“And then?” I asked.

“Then…then,” she faltered. “I just got carried away.”

I glared at her. “So, what was I? Your little creative writing project?”

The hardness in CeCe’s eyes melted. She stared down at the ground. “That’s not what I was doing.”

I pulled my hands through my hair. “I was falling for Bryn and this whole time, it’s been you. And it was all a lie!” I shouted.

CeCe looked up, returning my glare, as if she had the right to be mad right now. She took a step closer to me. “You think you’re so great at reading people. You could have figured it out. All it takes is five minutes talking to Bryn to know she couldn’t have put together two of the words I messaged you,” she said.