This is Not a Love Letter by Kim Purcell

Author:Kim Purcell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

11 PM Sunday, the news

Steph is pressed beside me on my old sofa, watching the television. The news is about to come on. We’re scarfing down frozen pizza that I heated up in the microwave, and it’s not bad. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.

“Lots of people can’t whistle,” Steph says.

“But it eliminates people.”

That commercial you love with the babies dancing in the mirror comes on. I picture you dancing beside the TV, being a goof. You like to make fun of your awkward dance moves, your snaps, your stiff side to side. I love that about you. You say you love my wild dancing too. I hear your voice now: “Baby, you move your body in all the right ways.”

The Komo 4 music plays. You’re the lead story.

They have your graduation photo, probably from the website. The anchor, Betty Jenkins, is saying a bunch of nice things about you. You’re a straight-A student, a popular kid, set to go to North Carolina State University on a baseball scholarship. But she doesn’t say what a good kisser you are.

My stomach is in knots. She cuts to a shot of our school and goes to that reporter woman who’s speaking so fast, she sounds excited. “Christopher Kirk went missing on Friday night. He told his mother he was going for a run, but he didn’t make it home.”

Then I’m on that damn little TV screen with my helmet. You can’t see my bike, so I look like the kind of person who needs a helmet.

Under my name, it says Former Girlfriend like a scarlet letter. Oh my god, I’m so mad. “Fuck you,” I yell.

And then, I’m talking on that little TV screen—no, I’m raging on—about the racism in this town.

Oh my god. My eyes look wild. I wish I could put up a disclaimer that I haven’t slept in forty hours. Maybe it’s superficial of me—yes, it’s definitely completely and totally superficial of me—but it’s brutal watching myself on television. My voice is higher and I look fatter. They say a camera adds ten pounds, but it’s more like thirty. I know you’d disagree, but the evidence is right there. My lip is quivering when I talk and truly, I can barely watch it. Do I really go around town looking like that? When it switches to Josh, I can finally breathe. My face is hot, no joke. He looks straight in the camera, calm and clear. “Chris, if you’re listening to this, just call and let us know that you’re okay.”

Tamara is next. Telling her goddamn story about the fence. “He came by the barbecue, looked over the fence at me, and said he’d see me later.” Her face screws up into a butthole, then she goes on, “Something must have happened.”

Then it’s Tim, and he backs me up, agreeing that people of color experience racism in this town. “I’m from the Lummi tribe.” There’s a cut, like they did some editing. “People call us names, sure.” His face twists angrily.

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