Fall Letter Board Quotes

He uncovered the boat, his hands working the knots like he'd been doing it his whole life. Under the tarp was an old steel rowboat with no oars. The boat had been painted dark blue at one point, but the hull was so crusted with tar and salt it looked like one massive nautical bruise. On the bow, the name Pax was still readable, lettered in gold. Painted eyes drooped sadly at the water level, as if the boat were about to fall asleep. On board were two benches, some steel wool, an old cooler, and a mound of frayed rope with one end tied to the mooring. At the bottom of the boat, a plastic bag and two empty Coke cans floated in several inches of scummy water. "Behold," Frank said. "The mighty Roman navy.

I look down at it, and the words blur for me. I try to unscramble them, but it’s too hard. I shove the board back toward him. He narrows his eyes at me and scrubs the board clean. He writes one word and turns it around. You, it says. He points to me. I point to myself. “Me?” He nods and swipes the board clean. He writes another word and shows it to me. “Can’t,” I say. He nods and writes another word. He’s spacing the letters far enough apart that they’re not jumbled together in my head, but it’s still hard. My lips falter over the last word, but I say, “Read.” Then I realize that I just told him I can’t read. “Wait! I can read!” I protest. He writes another word: Well. He knows I can read. Air escapes me in a big, gratified rush. “I can read,” I repeat. “I can’t read well, but…” I let my words trail off. He nods quickly, as though he’s telling me he understands. He points to me and then at the board, moving two fingers over it like a pair of eyes, and then he gives me a thumbs-up. My heart is beating so fast it’s hard to breathe. I read the damn words, didn’t I? “At least I can talk!” I say. I want to take the words back as soon as they leave my lips, but it’s too late. I slap a hand over my lips when his face falls. He shakes his head, bites his lip, and gets up. “I’m sorry,” I say. I am. I really am. He walks away, but he doesn’t take his backpack with him.

Dear Russell, Please don’t fall in love with Mrs. Smith’s niece. I— Caleb’s dash crossed the entire page. Then he filled up the rest of the sheet with doodles, drawing stars and spirals and little tic-tac-toe boards. I love you, he wrote at the bottom, in tiny letters. I want to be with you. I want you to wait for me till I’m ready, and I can’t ask because for all I know you’d be waiting till doomsday, because I don’t know how to accept He wrote a series of dashes. He scribbled some more stars. He flipped over the page, and wrote on the back: that you might leave me. That it might not last. And also that it might last, it might be real, it might be something I have to tell my parents about one day, I might have to choose you over the entire rest of the world. That I might choose you over the entire rest of the world, and you might change your mind. He could not look at it anymore. He flipped the paper back over, and wrote one more sentence among the scattered stars. But I am going to try.