Yeah, I Thought So (A Book of Ideas)

Eyes of a Letter

The main characters in this story are a boy and girl who end up as pen pals for a school assignment. The girl lives in France and the boy lives in America. I named the girl Maria and the boy Aiden.

Aiden's parents are both musicians, and they don't have a lot of money. Aiden spends most of his time feeling sorry for himself and complaining about school. He fails to realize that he actually has it really good. After all, not everyone has two loving parents who make his time at home simply a breeze. Aiden wants to grow up and work in the advertising business.

Maria's dad is a politician and her mother is a fashionista. She has an older brother who is pampered, while she is mostly ignored. She has a boyfriend, and he is abusive to her, but she keeps quiet about it, and her friends at school have stopped confronting her about her black eyes and bruises. She is extra kind to everyone she meets, because she doesn't want them to peg her as the stuck up rich kid. When she grows up she wants to write scripts for screen plays.

Maria's is the first letter, and she is super energetic in it. You would never know about her backstory from it, she is just so cheerful! Her energy and encouragement keep Aiden going through the first couple months of the assignment, until the roles start to flip. Things start happening in Maria's life, and she is having a hard time staying positive. Aiden becomes the reassuring one, trying to make her smile across the many miles that separate them. Through all of this Aiden starts falling hard for his French friend, and even learns her language so he can write to her in French the way she writes to him in English. Maria starts to crush on him too, but this only crushes her spirits more because she feels like she's hurting her boyfriend.

Overall, Maria and Aiden fall in love through their letters, even though they've never met. They keep writing even after school lets out for the summer. And then Maria's replies become drier and more scared. And then they're gone.

But what can Adrien do from his home in America to save his love in France? What happened to her? He can't go to France, his family doesn't have the funds for that.

So Aiden turns to the skill that his best friend taught him through a pen and paper. How to write something to influence someone. And Aiden uses his letters to save his best friend and the love of his life, Maria.