19 The Letter

During the lunch break on that day, May approached her with a smile and handed her a present along with a letter. She then voiced out, "Can you place these under the cherry tree?"

There was only one apple tree inside the school premise. Evelyn wanted to refuse, but those eyes of May made it hard for her to defy. Getting intimidated way too easily, Evelyn accepted the present and letter.

She then nodded.

May flashed her a wide smile and patted on her shoulder.

"Thank you! I knew that you were the best!"

Following that, Evelyn left the classroom with the present and letter. However, as she went down the stairs, she recalled about leaving her lunch money inside her bag. Therefore, she went back to retrieve it.

The door to the classroom was open. However, before she stepped in, the voices made her halt, and she grabbed on to the door knob.

"May, you said that we will be only doing this for two weeks or something! Why are you still hanging out with that loser!?" Ashley groaned, frustrated.

"Calm down, Ashley," May softly responded.

"Calm down? How do you expect me to do that when I hate that pathetic loser's face? It disgusts me each time I see her grovel like a desperate dog as though we are her masters. I don't know why we have to accompany that idiot."

That was her they were talking about, right?

Evelyn bit down on her lip.

Of course, she had a feeling that Ashley might not like her much. But she couldn't believe she thought of Evelyn in this degrading manner. Her chest squeezed painfully.

"Ashley, come on, don't you think it's funny how pitiful she looks as though we are her saviors? The way she tries to do everything so that she doesn't lose our favor?"

Those harsh words— Evelyn couldn't listen to them further. She walked away from there, feeling ashamed of herself.

Certainly, she noticed the signs. There was nothing healthy about their friendship. However, because Evelyn badly wanted to have friends, she ignored all the red flags and went along with their wishes.

She thought one day, just one day, she would be able to touch their hearts.

But it seems that once again she was given that harsh reality check.

It was that humans can indeed be so cold and stonehearted.

As Evelyn remained absent-minded, she walked out of the school building and came over at the backyard of the school. There stood tall a cherry tree. Her eyes went towards it when she noticed Landon standing underneath of it.

His eyes fell on her, and this instantly made Evelyn forget all about her grievances for a second. Then, her eyes fell on the present in her hand. She wished to be petty and throw it away.

But whatever, since Landon was here, she might as well give it to him.

She made her way towards him.

"What is it that you need?" he asked.

Before she could respond to that, a voice reached into her ears.

"Is that you, Evelyn? What's that in your hand? A letter?"

Evelyn's eyes widened when the letter in her hand was snatched away. Upon turning her head, her eyes fell on one of Annalise's friends, and there was Annalise standing back, leaning against the wall, while watching her with interest.

This gave her a bad feeling about the entire thing.

"Give it back," Evelyn ordered.

"Come on. What is this? A love letter? We are friends. So, don't we get the right to know as well? Let's read it together, alright?"

Evelyn clenched her hand into a tight fist. She wanted to almost fight for it when she thought about how Ashley felt about her and decided to be petty. Therefore, she stood still.

The girl stared at Evelyn with a smirk before she opened the letter and started to read out the content. It was a quite poetic love letter, making one admire the creativity of the writer. At the same time, the fervent passionate sounded disgusting to most.

Students started to gather in interest.

When the letter was almost finished, the girl gave her a mocking glance, and this placed a negative feeling inside Evelyn.

"Your only love, Evelyn."

This made Evelyn pause.

Wasn't that her name?

But the letter was written by Ashley.

In order to clarify the matters, she snatched the letter from the girl's hand, and she was quite accommodating. There it was, her name written in clear handwriting.