Chapter Four

The Game

I was so excited to move up to sixth grade. At the time, Pine Place had only one elementary, one middle and one high school so our grade levels bonded easily. We couldn't escape each other. I didn't have to worry about making new friends or how I'd fit in, so going to middle school felt exciting and new. That summer, my mom and I bought every mirror, magnetic photo frame, and cute sticker we could find at Target for my locker. I set it up on curriculum night.

On the first day of sixth grade, I wore a cute denim skirt and striped polo. I had a new purple JanSport backpack and Birkenstock clogs. I didn't have classroom books yet, but after the bell rang from homeroom and the class was transitioning to science, I decided to stop by my locker, just because it felt cool. I spun the dial. I had already memorized the combination.

When I opened the door, I noticed a yellow sticky note had fallen into the empty box.

I love you Ella .

Someone snickered behind me. I turned around to see Johnny and another kid, looking at me and laughing. Tucker stood in the center of them. Taller than the rest, his dark hair swooped to the side, his green eyes pinched and focused. I felt my whole body burn.

If we hadn't been at school, on the very first day, I would have charged over there and knocked him flat on his ass. But this school didn't know me yet. As my mother has pointedly put it, "Make a good first impression, honey. Please ."

I only had a bad reputation in elementary school for getting into arguments with Tucker. Brawls might be the better word. And anyone else who joined into the fight. I was not about to let him get me in trouble anymore.

I didn't get any more notes for the rest of the week, nor did I speak to him, so I thought it was a one-off joke, something mean to start the year with a bang. Then, another one came the following Monday.

Love you.

The next week: To the love of my life.

On Wednesdays: ILU

Every Friday, at least, he'd leave me hearts and love notes, sometimes actual roses, and I'd feel so angry that my blood would boil.

Who was buying him these flowers? Where was he getting all of this paper?

I told our parents about it, and they brushed it off, thinking he was trying to make me feel special. They thought it was cute, but Tucker knew what it was. At Christmas that year, I slapped him clear across the face, but he still didn't stop.

It wasn't enough that Tucker had to taunt me, but he told his friends about it, and they made fun of me. In the lunch line, they'd walk past me making kissing faces. They'd taunt, "There's Tucker's girlfriend." Or "Hey Ella, don't you want to sit next to your boyfriend ?" Even Johnny joined in. He thought it was no big deal and found it more important to make new, male friends.

Tucker wasn't trying to make me feel special. He was making fun of me. No one flirted with me in middle school, no boy wanted to talk to me, because he did this. He had made me a joke. A virus no one wanted to catch. He poked fun at the idea that I was loveable, that I would get a love note because I was so clearly stupid and beneath him.

I kept my cool through most of sixth and seventh grade, but I only had so much willpower. By the beginning of eighth grade, I'd had enough. He had somehow gotten a hold of my locker number and, on the first day of school, I opened the door to a flood of love notes. An absolute confetti of multicolored pieces of paper with hearts and stickers and professions of love. It must have taken him days to write them all. A day, at least, to stuff the locker.

By thirteen years old, the immediate reaction of girls around me was to touch their hearts and swoon. An unknown observer might think I had the cutest, most romantic little boyfriend with way too much time on his hands.

Then, they heard the laughing. Tucker and his clan, the best-looking, most popular boys in the grade, standing at the end of the hallway cackling to themselves.

Kids were gawking. Laughing. Whispering. Feet kicked up the bits of paper.

I heard a teacher comment, but my ears rang too much to hear clearly. I saw red. Tears began to prickle the corner of my eyes. I spun around and stared at Tucker.

I wished at that moment that I'd liked him the way our mothers wanted. I wished he cared about me like a friend or a sibling or a family member. Because I looked at him and I knew him - really knew him - and all I could think was how cruel he had been. To me . Not some random girl but me , the girl he shared a birthday cake with every year.

"I'm going to kill you!" I screamed.

His eyes went wide, and he pushed past his laughing friends as I chased him down the hallway. A male teacher caught him around the arm, and I went straight to his face, rearing my hand back to punch him on the jaw, when an arm landed across my stomach and pulled me back. The guidance counselor, my Aunt Zoey.

She corralled us into chairs in her office and demanded, "What is going on?"

"This wild thing chased me around the school like an animal!" Tucker yelled.

I gripped the arms of my chair. "Because he flooded my locker with love notes!"

Aunt Zoey shrugged. "Since when are love notes a bad thing?"

"He's not in love with me, he's just messing with me to be mean."

She looked at him. "Is this true, Tucker?"

He paused, then dropped his head sheepishly and shrugged.

I twisted around and shoved my face into his, forcing him to cower backward. "What is wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry," he grumbled and rolled his eyes.

"That's not the face of someone who is sorry!" I begged for help. "Aunt Zoey - fix him!"

He snapped back, "I don't need to be fixed!"

She said, "What needs to be changed is the way that you two interact with each other. I thought you were friends?"

"We are not friends," he and I responded.

She sighed. "Okay. Tell me this, at least, Eli - why are you sending Ella love notes?" I was about to interject when she shushed me. "Let him talk."

He straightened up and threw me a mean look. "Yes, for once, let me talk." His hands went to his lap. "I don't know why I do it. I was just teasing her."

Aunt Zoey tilted her head. "Teasing implies that the person on the receiving end might think it's funny, too. Ella doesn't think it's funny."

"It's never been funny," I said. "He knows that."

" Okay ." He grimaced. "It started as teasing, but I don't know…I guess I liked having this thing between us. Like this game."

She nodded. "A connection?"

He shrugged again.

I wanted to lay into him, but my father's warning eyes shone through my aunt's.

He continued, "We're not friends, but we have friends that are the same, so, I just…I just wanted this thing that was between us . Like just you and me." He threw his hands up, eyes still on the ground, and mumbled, "But I'll stop."

Aunt Zoey asked, "Ella, is that what you want? For him to stop?"

I didn't understand any of it - what he was saying or what I should say back. I responded, "I want him to stop making fun of me."

That night my aunt and her psychology degree came over and my mom forced me to listen to her analysis.

"I think Eli is searching for connection," she explained. "He doesn't know his biological father. His grandparents disowned his mother. His family is full of people she married into. I think he wants a connection with you that isn't just because you're both friends with the boy next door or because your mothers are friends. He wants to create a relationship with you."

It went over my head. All I know is that the notes stopped, and we didn't speak to each other directly for the rest of the year.

When high school came around, everything changed.

The notes reappeared. This time, however, he stuck sticky notes on the outside of my locker, where everyone could see. No snickering crowd stood watching. I'd catch the eye of a boy walking past and he'd notice the Sharpie written note - Tucker always wrote in big, bold letters - and give me a once-over. I'd pick up a flower Tucker taped on the outside and a group of girls would swoop in and want to hear all of the details. There were no details to tell, but my face blushed at the reactions around me, giving the allusion of being charmed. I was seemingly the object of someone's affection and that made me interesting.

He became progressively more boyish. He'd tug my hair, pick me up or pinch my side. He'd drop bags of M&M's in my backpack. He'd walk past me in the hallway and call me names.

" Brat ." " Bossy." "Beautiful."

We would sit beside each other at lunch, with our friend group, and barely say a word to each other. Then, I'd find a donut on the hood of my car from when he snuck out of school early.

Being in the orbit of the most popular boy in school put me on the map. He'd shout down the hallway, "I love you, Ella!" and it finally felt like a tease, like I was in on the joke. He'd cover my car windows with hearts written in paint marker. He'd write my name on his right hand, his pitching arm, when he had a baseball game.

On Eleventh-grade picture day, he ran into the shot before the camera took the picture and kissed me on the cheek. They actually used that shot in the yearbook. In fact, every single yearbook I have from high school is filled with comments from friends and classmates saying things like, " I love you too, Ella." People I barely knew asked to sign it, just to be part of the game. They would have to scribble their messages in between the giant block letters Tucker would fill every blank page with. I LOVE YOU.

The whole school knew it was a joke and they knew it was for me. When he'd make a scene, I'd shout some obscenity back to him, flip him the bird, or pretend to be angry about it. Most of the time he'd give me his perfect, cheeky smile, and I'd have to bite back a laugh.

We weren't friends. Never . We were friends of friends. But Tucker liked to play this little game.

And I let him.