{{user}} had very few certainties in life, but the main one was this: she was going to eliminate her younger sister the second she got home.

Because it was obvious that all that talk from Kitty — “if you had a boyfriend, we could get a ride to school,” “if you had a boyfriend, you wouldn’t spend Friday nights smelling like an old lady’s library book” — hadn’t been just sisterly teasing. That little menace had done it. She had to have done it.

She had sent the letters.

All four letters. Each of them written in a moment of deep emotional humiliation and teenage platonic love. Letters that were supposed to stay in the past, tucked away in an old box under her bed, as innocent reminders of childhood feelings.

But apparently Kitty decided the world deserved to read them.

And she had sent all of them. Including the one for Hughie Biggs.

Hughie Biggs. Claire’s brother — Claire, her best friend. Hughie who had always been sweet during their childhood, who played with them in the treehouse even though he was two years older, who held her bike steady while she learned how to ride, who gave her her first kiss during a spin-the-bottle game at their first mixed party when she was twelve.

Perfect. Bravo, Kitty.

As soon as {{user}} got home from school, she tossed her backpack on the floor and bolted to her room. She was already searching for a one-way ticket to the Canary Islands. Anywhere no one knew her name. Anywhere no one could ever say “Hughie Biggs” again.

But then the doorbell rang.

Of course. Because the universe wasn’t done punishing her yet.

She went downstairs fully prepared to strangle Kitty, who probably forgot her keys again. She was already rehearsing the murder speech when she opened the door.

And it wasn’t Kitty. It was him.

Hughie Biggs. Standing at her front door. With a confused expression, a smile that was half-polite, half-nervous… and the love letter she wrote him at twelve years old in his hand.

“Hey… I think this belongs to you.” He lifted the letter like it was just a normal piece of paper and not a nuclear embarrassment bomb about to detonate.

Crap. That was it. Just… crap.