Not This Time, Love Pt 15

 

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I sat on my bed, took out a sheet of paper, and began to write. Every word poured straight from my heart. I told Lucy how much I loved her. I wrote about the past—our struggles, my mistakes—and how I’d decided to wait for her, and her alone. When I finished, I folded the letter carefully and slipped it under my pillow. Tonight, I wanted nothing more than a sound sleep and maybe a sweet dream of Lucy and me together again.

Lying there, I let my mind drift. I thought about how hard I had fought to win Lucy’s heart, how our first kiss felt, and how her mother had sent boys after me like some scene from an action movie. I remembered the day I got her letter stravelling was traveling abroad, and how I had sat in the street crying like a baby, not even caring that a car could crush me. I remembered swearing never to give my heart to any girl but Lucy.

And then the embarrassing memory slipped in—my first wet dream, three days after Lucy left for London. I’d woken up thinking I’d wet the bed. My youth leader had always said such things were caused by evil spirits, so I ran to him for “special prayers.” It was only later that I read it was part of growing up. I smiled at the memory, then slowly drifted off to sleep.

Morning came. The first thing I did was check under my pillow for the letter I’d written the night before. It was gone. My heart skipped. I flipped through every book on my bed page by page. Nothing. I dropped to my knees, checked under the bed. Still nothing. Panic bubbled up in my chest. Who could have taken it?

I opened my bag to at least hold Lucy’s letter for comfort—but that was gone too. My heart stopped. Someone was clearly on a mission to hurt me.

That whole morning, I was restless. My mind ran in circles. What if those letters were in the wrong hands? Should I report it? Pretend nothing happened? Write another? But even if I did, how would I get Lucy’s address again? The questions kept piling like a storm inside my head.

When I finally got to class, before lessons even began, I overheard two students talking about Mike. They stopped as soon as I entered. Others were whispering too. I wanted to ask, but I kept quiet. If it was about mewere’d find out soon enough.

A few minutes into the lesson, the Senior Housemaster entered. In his left hand were two canes. My stomach twisted. What had I done to deserve this summons? Was it Mike? My missing letters? Something worse? Could this be the danger Jake’s prayer group had “revealed” to me? I remembered I hadn’t even read my Bible or prayed that morning because I’d been searching for the letters.

But it was too late to pray now. I followed him to his office. As soon as we entered, he reached into a file on his desk and pulled out two sheets of paper. My heart nearly stopped—they looked exactly like my missing letters.