Letters to Luke || 5SOS #Wattys2015

- 1 - L y r a - The Letter Project

- Tuesday August 2nd -

"Pick two."

Those were the first words Isabella said to me. Of course, she held a small box filled with a bunch of folded up pieces of paper out to me first, so I knew what she was talking about. But this behavior was new; almost ... planned.

Now, to most people, this wouldn't seem odd. When most people's friends are excited about something, they'll tell you what they're excited about and then greet you, rather than greet you, then start talking like usual. The reason I was confused by this was because with the three of us, this never happened. Even when one of us was extremely excited about something, we always greeted each other first, then started explaining why we were excited. We never forgot to greet each other when we got together; it was a ritual born of the fact that we all acknowledged each other's existence, and it was never broken. That was why I was reluctant to just 'pick two' as Ella had requested when she and Roxie barged into my room this afternoon so much as a greeting or an explanation.

Roxie obviously saw the look on my face and tried to explain. "Just pick two. That's it. Just two little pieces of paper out of twenty. Please? For me? Everything will be explained, you just have to pick two pieces of paper. Okay?" I felt like a child being coaxed to try a new piece of food.

"Fine." I sighed. I still wasn't sure I liked what they had obviously planned but I decided to go along with it. For now. So I put my hand in the box shuffled the papers around and pulled out two little pieces of paper.

"Okay. Before you open them," Ella started, "let us explain what they're for. Roxie, you should do the honors, since this amazing idea was yours?"

"Yes. You know how the fights between you and your parents have been getting worse and worse in the past couple of months, due to school and Marie's pageants?" I nodded. "And remember how El and I promised we'd come up with a solution to it a couple of weeks ago?" I nodded again. So that's what this is about."Well this is our solution!" Roxie exclaimed. "You ready to hear it?"

"Yep. Whatcha got?" I asked, not expecting anything drastic; after all, they had only spent two weeks thinking about this. I can't even write a paper in two weeks.

"Okay. So, I was reading a book last week," Roxie explained, hands flying aggressively as she grew more and more overwhelmed. "The book was about a couple during the Revolutionary War, and the wife sent letters to her husband to keep in touch and keep him up to date on what's going on at home. He replied when he could but couldn't always give information for fear of the letter being intercepted. In the end the husband died in war and the wife, when she found out, sold their estate and committed suicide to be with him in heaven. Anyway, it gave me an idea - "

"Wait wait wait. You're saying your so called 'genius idea' came from a tragedy?" I cut her off.

"Yes, but that's not the point-"

"And it's not exactly reassuring either." I interrupted again, with a pointed look.

"Stop interrupting!" Ella cried in exasperation. "You'll like this, trust me! I promise! When have I ever made a promise I didn't truly believe I couldn't keep? Don't answer that." she said when she saw me open my mouth to answer her.

I smirked at her. We both knew Roxie was the one who made promises she genuinely thought she could keep while Ella just promised things to get something done. This time though, Roxie agreed with Ella.

"I PROMISE you'll like this. Just hear us out okay?" Roxie said, drawing our attention back to her.

"Alright," I sighed in resignation. "Keep talking."