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Your eyes weren't meeting his either, and his head tilted, arching an eyebrow.

"Come over here," he urged you gently, patting the extra chair he kept next to his desk, just for when you wanted to come in and study with him.

Or, more likely, to pester him until he paid attention to you while he was trying to do his own homework.

You hesitated, then slowly came up, plopping down in the chair with your hands still behind your back.

"You gonna show me what you're holdin' onto so tightly there?"

You glared at him, and he just smiled sweetly, chin propped on his palm, trying to wear down your defenses.

It gave a boost to his pride when it worked, your shoulders deflating with a big sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the world, and he tensed again.

Were you being bullied? Did you fail a test? Or was it the nightmares again?

Whatever he thought might be wrong, it definitely wasn't you admitting that, "I want to write a love letter."

Caleb stiffened, his mind going to every dark place he tried to hide away from himself, every face of some loser with a hopeless crush on you flashing in his mind.

Outwardly, he tried to hide his troubled expression, but his brows furrowed anyway.

"Why do you want to write a love letter?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice even. But it was tight, his posture stiff when he looked down at his essay again, no longer seeing the words there. "You got someone in mind?"

"Well—no."

Caleb dared to look back up to see you were pouting. And even with the restless storm in his mind, he had to resist the urge to pinch the apples of your cheeks when they were all puffed out so cutely like that.

"But what if I do want to write one eventually?" you continued, in clear distress over a hypothetical situation that he hoped would never exist one day. "And I don't know how, and I just look stupid!"

"You'd never look stupid," he said quickly, effortlessly and honest, even as he frowned deeper at your explanation. "But I told you before, pips, letters are our thing. Why would you—"

He stopped short, breath catching in his throat when he finally saw what was in your hands as you held it out to him.

Across the front of an envelope of antique looking parchment, written carefully in cursive (you never used cursive, you hated how your handwriting looked in it, even though he thought it was perfect and pretty), was the letters spelling out his name.

Caleb looked from it, to you, then down to the envelope again.

"What's—"

"Practice," you interrupted, shoving it into his chest, and he scrambled to grab it. "I need you to tell me if it's any good."

"Pipsqueak, you—" Caleb cleared his throat, shifting nervously, his fingers almost shaking when he grazed them over his name. "You wrote me a love letter?"

"For practice!"

He laughed, and he hoped you didn't hear how winded the noise sounded. Because you'd sure stolen the breath right from his lungs with how you nervously fidgeted, avoiding his eyes, your love letter in his hands.

Your love letter.

For him.

Oh god.

He carefully unsealed the tape (one of your favorite decorative ones, with the cute little red and green apples dancing together), his heart in his throat as he pulled the letter out.

And oh god it smelled like that perfume you'd begged Gran to get you for your birthday, the one that was warm with vanilla and cinnamon and a hint of apples and it smelled amazing you were amazing you—

"Stop treating it like it's a bomb!" you complained, smacking him in the chest, and he laughed anxiously.

"I'm not!" he argued, not knowing how to tell you that this was something precious, something delicate, and he never trusted himself to not break something that special in his hands.

He got stuck for a moment on the Dearest Caleb that started out the letter, his fingertips brushing across it, before he forced himself to get past his nerves and read the first sentence.

A laugh got caught in his throat unbidden, and you were scrambling all over him in an instant, trying to grab it back as you shouted, "What? What?! What's so funny?"

"I am writing to you today," he repeated the start of your opening line, grinning at you as you whined and shook him. "This sure is a formal love letter. Are you courting me, pipsqueak?"

"Shut up!" you snapped, pinching him in the side, and he jumped with an over dramatic ow! "Give it back!"

"Noooope, it's mine now!" He grinned, wrapping his arm around you to keep you pressed to his side, and you playfully punched him while he held the letter over your head and kept reading silently.

'I am writing to you today to tell you what I've wanted to say for a really long time.'

Oh.

Caleb sucked in an unsteady breath, eyelashes fluttering with the indescribable emotion that swept through him.

It's just practice, he told himself over and over as you settled into his side. Your arms wrapped around his waist for comfort, your face burying into his chest with embarrassment. You don't mean it.

And then the next sentence hit.

'I like you, Caleb.'

Oh.

'I like you so much that it's hard to focus on anything but you. I think about you when I'm with you or when you're gone. I think about you during class, or when I'm watching your games, or when you make my favorite snacks after school.'

'I'm always thinking about how I want to hold your hand for longer when you walk me home. I want to hold you tighter when you hug me, and kiss—'

Caleb glanced away, eyes squeezing shut, face tilted up towards the ceiling as he mouthed a silent prayer that he didn't completely lose his mind right now.

Then he dared to look back down, to keep reading:

'—and kiss you on the sidewalk, in the rain, when you hold an umbrella over my head.'

He glanced at the top of your head, at how you held onto him so tightly, hoping against all hope that you couldn't hear or feel how his heart was pounding against his chest right now.

'You're cute, and you're funny, and you've always been nice to me, even when you're pretending to be mean just to tease me.'

"Caleb," you whined, poking him in the ribs as he read through each line carefully. "What do you think?"

"Well, so far it sounds like a birthday card," he teased, lying through his teeth just so you couldn't see right through him and tell how madly in love with you he was, as he'd always been.

You dropped your head onto his shoulder with a groan.

"But give me some time," he said softly. "I'm still makin' my way through it."

"Well, hurry up!" you poked at him impatiently again, and he brushed your hand aside with a laugh.

'You're my best friend, and I want you to be more than that, if you want it too.'

He could almost laugh at that if he wasn't so winded with emotion. If he wanted it. Like you weren't teasing him with all he's ever wanted, and telling him it was practice.

And then the last line hit him right where it hurt the most, in the part of him that's always ached for you, burrowing in there to stay.

'Would you ever be mine?'

"Well?" you said, untangling yourself from his slack grip. You bounced anxiously in your seat, and he hoped you couldn't see how red his face had gotten. "How is it? Did it make your heart flutter?"

Flutter? It nearly gave him a heart attack.

He wanted to give you a real answer to your fake question, to tell you yes. He wanted to scream it to the heavens, wanted to grab your face and kiss you all over and say yes. He would. He already was.

Caleb cleared his throat.

"It's good," his voice cracked when he said it and oh, god, could you see right through him?

"Really?"

You leaned closer, and Caleb quickly scrambled back, as far in the other direction as he could get as you kept creeping closer.

"Yeah, pips, real good," he complimented, carefully tucking the letter back into the envelope, his heart racing. "But, uh, you should keep practicing. On me."

You frowned a little, disappointed as always when you felt like you didn't nail something right on the first try. And he didn't have the guts to tell you that you absolutely did hit it right out of the park, his head all the way up in the clouds with the daydreams you'd fueled for him for the foreseeable future.

"Okay," you muttered, eyes downcast, and his heart ached.

"Hey," Caleb said softly, ruffling your hair gently. You peered up at him through your lashes with a pout, and he just about melted. "I told you it was good, didn't I?"

You sniffed, and he only then noticed your eyes were all teary. "Is it really?"

"Yeah." He rubbed his thumb at the corner of each of your eyes, trying to not look too adoring to cross a line when you leaned into his palm. "My heart's all a-flutter. Promise."

You smiled into his hand, and his heart skipped a beat again.

"Okay," you said with newfound determination, giving a resolute nod. "I'll keep practicing. Watch out for the next one, you'll be in love with me before you know it!"

Caleb choked on air at that.

He let you get all the way to the door, and listened to you open it before his resolve cracked.

"I would."

You paused, glancing back over your shoulder at him.

"Would what?" you asked, and Caleb let out a breathless laugh.

"Nothin', pipsqueak," he brushed off, pulling his textbook closer to himself, staring at the words that blended together, your letter on his desk still in the corner of his eyesight.

For a moment, you stayed in his doorway behind him. He could feel you staring. And he almost looked back.

What face were you making? he wondered. Was it the same as his?

Was the same hidden part of him hidden in you as well?

But then the door shut behind you, and Caleb collapsed with a heavy sigh, head banging against the desk.

"What are you doin' to me, pips?" he whispered under his breath, lovesick and bringing the letter up to his lips to kiss it with a dazed smile. "Whatever it is, please keep doin' it."