Chapter 4

ERIN

"I'm so sick of teachers thinking they can make new assignments and have students actually enjoy them." Erin muttered in annoyance as she flipped her phone over on the table during lunch on Monday morning, ignoring the Twitter notification popping up from her sister's reply, "We're not going to enjoy History, no matter how many times Mr. Evans plays songs from 'Hamilton' at the beginning of class. That musical's like thirty years old, anyways."

"I know." Draper shrugged, shoveling mashed potatoes into his mouth as if he hadn't eaten in years—and Erin had watched him eat half a dozen donuts in homeroom that morning, "So we'll just pretend that we like it to make him take things easy on us, and everything will be fine." He swallowed his food and turned to look over at Erin, ignoring the rest of their friends scattered around the table, "Also..." his voice lowered to a whisper as he asked the next part of his question, "...you heard anything from Houston Collet? Is he still like, super angry at you for snooping through his phone?"

Erin shrugged. She didn't honestly care what Houston Collet thought of her. All she cared about was the well-being of her sister, who, despite having a year on Erin age-wise, was not exactly in tune with her emotions. Erin knew this breakup was hurting her far more than she was willing to let on—and Cory had been more open about her feelings than usual over the course of the past few days.

But Draper had been Erin's best friend since the second grade, and she knew he wasn't going to take that answer.

"I haven't heard anything from him, but he's all over social media, acting like I did something awful to him." She rolled her eyes, "Cheaters have this way of ensuring that they somehow manage to come out the victim when they were the ones who manipulated and lied in the relationship. It blows my mind."

Draper shook his head, sighing as he started on his third slice of pizza.

"That sucks." He said, the food in his mouth making his words almost indecipherable. "I could go talk to him, if you want."

"Why would I want that?" Erin shook her head, "I don't want to have any contact with him again, and I definitely don't want him knowing that he got to us in any way that would make it so that our friends were coming after him."

"By 'us,' I'm assuming you mean you and Cory, not you and me."

"Obviously."

The bell rang to signal the end of lunch and Erin stood up, waiting until Draper was on her right side and Braxton on her left before leaving the cafeteria. The three had been joined at the hip since their freshman year, when Braxton Fisher had managed to penetrate the clique-like friendship that Erin and Draper had developed over the entirety of their grade school careers.

The three headed for their History class, where they had the same teacher that Erin's sister had the period after they did. Erin took her regular seat in the back of the classroom, in between her two best friends, as Mr. Evans began class.

She felt her phone vibrate and pulled it out to see a message from one of the last people she wanted to hear from. Not the very last person she wanted to hear from. But one of the last.

Erin had never spoken a single word to Hadley Hunter. She had only seen the girl on Instagram and in the hallways, and maybe at a party or two. That part in and of itself was iffy.

But Erin Hall had never been a particularly hostile person, so she figured she could reply to the girl without causing too much of a stir.

"Miss Hall?"

Erin jumped slightly in her seat as Mr. Evans appeared in front of her desk, waving a basket full of folded up pieces of paper in front of her face.

"Pick one, please." He said, his voice showing the slight exasperation at Erin being on her phone during class.

"Yes, sir." Erin nodded and picked up a piece of paper as someone else walked into the room and she looked up to see Daniel Carpenter walking in late.

"You're not making yourself too obvious." Draper whispered as Mr. Evans walked on to have other people select pieces of paper, "Maybe try to cut the staring down a bit."

Erin felt herself blush slightly as she tore her eyes away from Daniel and instead looked at the paper in her hand. It had a name on it: 'Patrick Vonswen.'

"What is this for?" She whispered to Braxton as Mr. Evans walked back up to the front of the room and began speaking.

"So, whatever name you drew is the name of your pen pal in Redding. They're all going to be either juniors or seniors, depending on your pick, and you can start writing your introductory letter to them now."

Erin almost rolled her eyes at the sound of that; whose bright idea had it been to repeat the essentially exact same scenario that had led her parents to meeting each other thirty years earlier?

"Start writing." Braxton whispered, nodding slightly towards their teacher, who was staring at Erin with a strange expression on his face, "I don't think he cares if you're confused."

Erin stood up from her seat and walked up to Mr. Evans, ignoring her friend.

"May I ask why we're doing this assignment?" She asked without bothering to check if he was paying attention to her first, "This isn't 2015."

"I know." Mr. Evans laughed slightly, "One of the parents contacted me and said they thought it would be an educational experience. Now, go write your letter."

'One of the parents,' Erin repeated in her head as she walked back to her seat, 'AKA, my parents.'

She sat down and pulled out a pen and paper, jotting down a few words before folding it up and leaning back in her seat. She didn't want to do this assignment. She was sick of hearing about how her parents met and fell in love; she didn't need to recreate the experience for herself.

Patrick,

Hi. My name is Erin. My mom or dad probably asked my teacher to do this, and I don't know how your school got roped into it. Sorry about that.

Sincerely,

Erin Hall