Page 10 of Puck You Not

To:[email protected]

Date:September 4, 2024

Subject: RE:Hey

You first.

Truly,

A (and I’ll start off your guessing with a hint: It’s not Annie, Angela, Addison or Abby.)

One

Avalon Warner

How It’s Going…

God’s sake, Avie.You can’t write Parrish into your fiction.

Leaning back against the headboard of my bed, I scowled at the fantasy manuscript I was writing between homework assignments, classes and my work on campus.I didn’t have time for subconsciously inserting my pen pal crush into the action, but sure enough, my hero had shaped up to be disturbingly close to Parrish Locksby.Only, my hero wielded a sword rather than a hockey stick.

My phone went off next to me as I contemplated my problem, one I didn’t really want to fix, and I scowled over at the screen.I only had fifteen minutes of writing time left before leaving for class that morning, but the caller was my older sister, Meredith.That meant, I needed to answer, or she’d call me thirty-seven more times.

After hitting save on my document, I reached for the cell and answered a split second before she’d go to voicemail.

“Hi, Mer,” I answered.

“What took so long?”she grouched, without greeting.She’d never been a morning person.

I closed my eyes, quietly sighing.This was why I wrote fiction.

“I was saving my work before answering.”She didn’t need to know it wasn’t schoolwork, so I didn’t clarify.All my sister cared about was me getting top grades, graduating with honors then getting a job and never coming home.

I wished that was a joke, but since my parents died, my older brother and sister both saw me as a hassle who’d held them back from moving forward with their lives.Excuse me for only being twelve when my mom and dad had been in their accident.Though they’d never said so, I’d been an ‘oops baby’ when they’d thought they were done with kids.When we’d lost our mother and father, my brother was twenty-two and my sister was twenty.They’d shuffled me between them and never let me forget what a burden they’d taken on by keeping me—or letting me come to stay with one of them during the summer breaks from university.

“What’s up?”I asked when she didn’t say anything.

“Do you have a job yet?”she asked.

“Not yet.”

I heard the annoyed breath she huffed out.“I take it, you don’t have a place to stay after graduation, either?”

“No…” I said, dragging out the word.“It’s only March.I don’t know where I’ll be working after graduation, so I haven’t started looking for apartments.”

“Well, you can’t come back here,” she snapped.

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

She’d already been vocal about her ‘duty’ being done as far as I was concerned, and that she’d done more than should be expected of anyone.I pitied her future kids, if she ever had any.

“And Ben’s job is sending him to Brazil for work.He’ll probably be there for a year, maybe more—”

“I wasn’t planning to go there, either,” I interrupted.“You guys have been crystal clear.”

“You don’t need to be snarky.”

My eyes widened as I drew in a long breath and held it.Snarky?She had no idea how I’d minded my temper and kept my opinions to myself for the past ten years.

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