The note stayed in Kasey’s pocket for the rest of the game, and when she and her friends decided to go get ice cream at the mall afterwards, the note came along too. In fact it stuck pretty close to Kasey all night, nestled in her pocket, a folded up dirty little secret sitting between a tissue and a stick of gum.

Once Kasey was home and safely alone in her bedroom she lay down on her bed and pulled out the note to read immediately. That she had waited this long was deserving of a medal in some kind of restraint Olympics, surely. The first thing she noticed was that Spencer had amazingly neat handwriting for a boy. This information alone, she felt, spoke of alarming new depth in his character that had never even occured to her before. Unknown depth.

The note started simply with;

Tara,

No dear, as in Dear Tara, just a Tara by itself. A neat unaffectionate start, which was apt for what came next…