The Letter

by

R.L. Mathewson

“Damn it,” Jason said as he roughly rubbed his hands down his face only to sigh heavily as he sat back in his chair and found himself looking at that letter.

Goddamn it…

Telling himself that he needed to get through the rest of the applications tonight, Jason focused back on the application in front of him and…couldn’t stop thinking about Mikey’s letter. He’d been on the approval committee since he was promoted to Head of the History Department and this was the first time in ten years that he’d wished that he’d turned down that damn promotion.

He didn’t want to do this.

Sebastian had worked his ass off to get where he was and now…

He couldn’t do this, Jason thought, shoving his chair back. He couldn’t do this to Sebastian, he decided, crossing the small room so that he could shove the window open and take a deep breath of fresh air, hoping that it would be enough to make what he had to do easier.

“What’s wrong?” came the question that had him slowly exhaling.

“Did Sebastian tell you about Mikey’s submission essay?” Jason asked, leaning his shoulder against the windowsill as he glanced back to watch as his wife placed his dinner on the desk next to the stack of applications that he still needed to go through.

Shaking her head, Haley said, “As far as I know, Mikey won’t let him read it.”

Nodding, Jason glanced back out the window as he murmured, “That makes sense.”

“What’s going on?” she asked as she joined him by the window.

“Have you read Sebastian’s essay?” Jason asked as he thought about Sebastian’s application, wondering what the hell that kid had been thinking.

“It needs some work,” Haley said only to sigh before adding. “It needs a lot of work.”

“Yes, it does,” he said, pushing away from the wall and walked over to his desk to pick up the letter that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since he read it this morning.

“He’s up to something,” Jason murmured absently as he found himself reading Mikey’s letter again.

Although, this essay is supposed to demonstrate why I would make a wonderful addition to Latin Scribe High School, I can’t do that. Not when I know that there is someone else that should be there instead.

I want to tell you about my best friend, Sebastian Bradford with the hopes that you will read this letter before you have the chance to read his file because that will only tell you about the mistakes that he’s made and I want to tell you about the boy…

“What makes you say that?” Haley asked as he handed her the letter.

He watched as she worried her bottom lip while she read the letter and-

“Damn it, Mikey,” Haley said softly as she closed her eyes and handed the letter back to him. “This isn’t going to end well, is it?”

“No,” Jason murmured as he glanced down at the letter, “it’s not.”

©Rerum Carta Industries, Inc. 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Misunderstood

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