“And that Naomi is the reason the wedding never happened,” Anne chimes in.
“You went pretty far to find an address,” Ben says.
“She went to San Diego and to a base I was stationed at in Georgia, too,” I add.
“At least I didn’t lie about who I was,” she says. Then, turning to Ben, she says, “He sent me a death threat at the news station.”
Ben snaps his head in my direction. He looks horrified.
I direct my response to Ben, because I can’t bring myself to turn my head and look at her when she’s this close to me. I’m afraid that I might do something stupid. “It wasn’t really a death threat,” I argue. “I just said that I hoped she got struck by lightning.”
“To be fair, Naomi read it and laughed,” Anne says. “I was ready to turn the letter in to the station manager.”
“You guys are so weird,” Ben says, shaking his head. Addressing Naomi again, he says, “Did you know that if it wasn’t for me, Luca wouldn’t have written back to you that first time? I guess you have me to thank for the world’s weirdest friendship.”
“They’re hardly friends anymore,” Anne says. “Can’t you sense the tension between them?”
Ben looks from Naomi to me, his brow furrowed, like he didn’t notice how awkward this was for both of us. I turn to look at her in time to catch her staring at me, but she quickly turns her head in the other direction.
“Wow, you really did screw up, didn’t you?” Ben says. “Just apologize to her.” He looks at each of us again, and curiosity gets the best of him. “What did you do? Rip a hangnail off her hand? Threaten to kill her yourself?”
“He lived here for six months, wrote letters to her, and took her out on dates while letting her think he was someone else,” Anne says.
“Six months? Damn.” Ben looks at Naomi. She’s glaring out the window next to her.
Before I can stop myself, I reach under the table and rest my hand on her leg. She doesn’t slap my hand away, but she doesn’t look at me either.
“I guess I should have known that he would be as big of an asshole in real life as he was in his letters,” she says.
Her words are more painful than a slap would have been, but they have the same effect. I take my hand off her thigh. She looks at me for just a moment before facing Ben and Anne across the table again.
“I wasn’t lying to her for a whole six months,” I tell Ben. “I only got the courage to talk to her for the first time a few weeks ago.”
“I’m not surprised. You’re a big wuss when it comes to talking to women,” he says. Then, addressing Anne and Naomi, he adds, “Which is weird considering he was a player all the way up until junior year in high school. I never saw him with anyone else until Penny came along.”
From the corner of my eye, I can see Naomi turning her head in my direction. I dare to turn my head and meet her eye. Her brow is wrinkled in a slight frown, her lips parted just a little, like she’s thinking about saying something, but then she thinks better of it and her mouth closes. I wonder if she remembers that junior year was when I asked her if we could be friends on Facebook. I wonder if she’ll put it together that I lost interest in my classmates because of her.
She holds my stare for a moment before she turns her attention back to Ben. “You’ve really known Luca since fifth grade?”
He nods. “Since fourth, actually.”
“But you were in the same fifth grade class? Did you have a pen pal, too?”
“Of course. His name was…” He scratches his chin like he’s thinking hard. “Andy, I think. Something like that.”
It’s clear that she recognizes the name by the way her eyes brighten. “Andy Nicoletti?”
Ben smirks. “Do you remember the first and last name of everyone in your fifth-grade class?”
Her mouth widens into a smile. “No, but I grew up with Andy. We dated for a while in high school.”
I know that high school was a long time ago, but I can’t help but wonder why she looks so happy when she thinks about Andy Nicoletti. Then her eyes flash over to me for the briefest second, and I think I know why. She must be trying to make me jealous.
“No way,” Ben says. “I can’t believe I was writing to the future ex-boyfriend of the legendary Naomi Light.”
She rolls her eyes, still smiling. “I’m not that legendary.”
“You wrote to this guy for damn near twenty years and didn’t go insane. That’s pretty legendary if you ask me.”
