The Alpha’s Pen Pal (Crescent Lake Book 1)

DEAR HAVEN,

It’s me. Wesley. Wesley Stone.

Well, I guess it is probably pretty obvious that it’s me, since my name is on the outside of the envelope, and I’m also probably the only person who writes you letters.

Crap. That probably sounded ruder than I meant it to. I just meant that most people don’t really write letters nowadays, so if you were to receive a letter from someone, it would make sense for it to be a letter from someone who had already written you a letter before. Not that no one would want to write you a letter. That’s not what I meant.

Great, now I’m rambling. You probably won’t even read this, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. I was kind of rude to you before. No, scratch that, I was REALLY rude to you.

I could try to push the blame off of myself and say something like “Well, I didn’t know that my pen pal would be an orphan,” but that would be immature of me, because, no matter who the letter was for, I should have never written the letter the way I did. And for that, I am truly, deeply sorry.

I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and I honestly wouldn’t blame you if you never want to write to me again, but I had to at least let you know that I realize I was an ass to you. (I know you’re only nine, so I’m sorry for the language, but it’s truthfully the best word to describe me right now.)

If you’re even reading this letter, and you don’t want to forgive me, then that’s fine. I understand. And if you don’t want to forgive me, and you’re still reading this letter then you can stop reading it now and throw it away or burn it or rip it up or put it in a shredder… whatever makes you happy, however you want to get rid of it… that’s what you should do.

However, if you do want to forgive me, then I’d really like a second chance. A fresh start. I’m not saying to forget what happened before. Just that I would like a chance for us to try this whole pen pal thing again and just see what happens?

The truth is, even with my two best friends, Reid and Nolan, and my brother, Sebastian, I still sometimes feel like there is something missing. Maybe it’s you? Maybe I need a friend with a different perspective on life, someone who didn’t grow up beside me, someone who hasn’t always been my friend.

So, what do you say? Do you think you can give me a chance?

Again, I totally understand if you don’t want to. I don’t deserve it. I really don’t. To be honest, I don’t think I deserve to have you open this letter or even touch the envelope. So, if you’ve made it this far, I guess that means you don’t hate me as much as I think you should.

I’m rambling again.

Just… think about it, Haven.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Your friend (hopefully),

Wesley Stone

HAVEN

My day started the same as most days. I got up, brushed my teeth, got dressed, ate breakfast, and rode to school in Shirley’s car. She played my favorite songs on the stereo during the drive and told me to have a good day as I got out of the car once we’d arrived.

I dropped my backpack off outside my classroom once I entered the campus, and I went to the playground, where I sat on the swings by myself while all the other students found their friends as they arrived.

Then the bell rang, and that’s when the predictable flow of my day went off course.

I was not expecting to walk into my classroom and find a letter from Wesley Stone sitting on my desk. I was not expecting to ever hear from him again. It had been about a week since we had sent our reply letters, and no one else had received a second letter.

I glanced around the room, checking to see if anyone else had an envelope on their desk, but it was clear I was the only one.

I shoved it into my desk before anyone else could see it, and I left it there all day, unable to focus on what Mrs. Rodrigo was saying or teaching or assigning us because all I could think about was the letter in my desk. I only took it out right at the end of the day when we packed up our things before dismissal.

And that’s how I ended up sitting in the backseat of Jack’s car, holding the envelope and staring at it, trying to decide if I should open it or not.

“What do you have there, Haven?”

Jack’s eyes stared at me in the rearview, watching me and waiting for my response.

“It’s a letter,” I said quietly.

He didn’t respond at first, and I turned my attention out the back window.

“A letter? Who from?” he asked, making a left turn onto the road leading away from the school.

I sighed, turning my head back in his direction. “Wesley. My pen pal.”

“Pen pal? That sounds like fun. I didn’t even know people still did that kind of thing.”

I nodded at him, not sure how to respond to that statement. It hadn’t been fun so far, but he didn’t know that.

“What does the letter say?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Why not?”

I pressed my lips together, deciding how much to tell him about what had happened with Wesley and this pen pal assignment.

“What’s wrong, Haven?” Jack asked, his head looking directly at me now while we waited at a stoplight.

I released my lips, blowing out air from my mouth to keep myself calm and to prevent my voice from shaking. “He wasn’t very kind in his first letter,” I said.

“What do you mean? What did he say?” His brows pulled into a sharp frown at my words, and a tiny part of the walls I had built around my heart crumbled a little at his desire to help me and his need to know how someone had hurt me.

A horn honked behind us, making both of us jump, and Jack muttered, “Shit!” as he turned forward and continued driving. “Don’t tell your mom I said that,” he said, looking at me in the mirror again with a wink.

I rolled my eyes and giggled. Shirley was just as bad as Jack about cursing while driving, and both of them always asked me to keep it from the other. It was hilarious.

“I don’t remember what it said,” I told him. “I threw it away at school.”

That was not actually true. I saved it and took it home, hiding it in the bag I always had ready and packed for when social services came to take me to a new home.

I wasn’t sure why I saved it. I was prepared to tear it up and throw it in the trash. But at the last second, I put it in my backpack instead and took it home to put with the small amount of meaningful, personal items I had collected in my short life.

We pulled into the driveway, and I got out of the car before Jack even put it in park, bounding up the steps to the front porch and racing through the front door. I hung my purple backpack on the designated hook in the entryway, hoping to avoid him asking more questions about Wesley and his first letter.

For some reason, I felt it was important to protect him. If I told Jack what Wesley said to me in the first letter, Jack would tell Mrs. Rodrigo, who would tell her sister, who is the teacher of the class we exchanged letters with, and Wesley would get in trouble.

And, even though he deserved it, I didn’t think it was right for him to get punished for something he didn’t really mean. He was just a kid. Just like me.

As soon as I got up the stairs, I turned right and entered my bedroom, closing the door behind me. I sank to the floor with my back against the door and opened the letter.

My heart pounded in my chest as I read his words, my hands shaking enough that I had to set the paper on my legs in order to read it. I was so nervous about what I might find written there, afraid his words might hurt me again.

I don’t know why I was even reading it, especially after how he treated me the first time, but I couldn’t stop myself. My curiosity had gotten the best of me, and I had to know what he had to say this time.

I read through the letter way too fast the first time, my brain barely processing the words on the paper in front of me. I started it again, this time slowing down to understand what he said to me.

As I reread, another tiny part of the walls around my heart came down. He was sorry. Really, truly, honestly sorry. And he wanted to try again. He wanted be my friend.

And he was kind of funny. The way he rattled on in his writing, his inner thoughts coming out onto the page—I could imagine him talking to himself like that in real life, a constant stream of thoughts and words about everything and anything that happened around him during his day-to-day activities.

A small smile formed on my lips as I read it a third time. I moved from the floor to the full-size bed in the middle of the large bedroom I had been lucky enough to call my own for the last year. I flopped down onto my stomach and grabbed the blanket they found me with, my eyes never leaving the paper in front of me.

When I’d finished reading it, I set it down on the comforter and crossed my arms under my chin on the bed.

My eyes scanned the room around me, taking in every detail. The pristine white computer desk next to the window, the walk-in closet filled with more clothes than I could ever wear, and the much-too-large-for-me attached bathroom, complete with a shower and a separate tub.

Even with these luxuries I had never had access to until moving there, the room still didn’t feel like it was mine. It felt like there was something missing. It didn’t have those personal touches that made it say “this is Haven’s space.”

I thought about the movies and television shows I had watched, picturing the rooms in those stories, and I realized what they all had in common that my room was lacking.

Friends. Or at least tokens of those friendships. There were no photos on the walls, or on top of the dresser, or pinned to the bulletin board by my desk. There were no knick-knacks or trinkets from carnivals or arcade visits. No movie tickets from months ago. No handwritten notes passed during class or at recess or lunchtime.

I’d never made any friends in any of my former homes. Part of it was moving so much and joining classes in the middle of the year when friendships had already formed. But part of it was also because of me. Because I didn’t want to let people in too much, because I was too afraid of having to say goodbye, because I was too focused on protecting my heart from the pain of rejection and the inevitable farewell that would take place. That was why I still couldn’t bring myself to refer to Jack and Shirley as “Mom” and “Dad.”

But maybe… maybe Wesley was my chance. My chance to have a friend, someone who would stick around no matter what, no matter where my life took me.

Maybe he was my chance to heal myself, to let people see behind the wall I had always kept around myself. Maybe, by giving him a second chance, he could be my second chance. Maybe I could find some happiness.

I sprang into action, moving to my desk, my blanket laid across my lap in my rolling chair. I grabbed the first piece of paper and writing utensil I could find—a wrinkled paper with a slight rip and a hot pink felt-tip pen—instead of searching for the perfect pencil and paper like I did the first time I wrote a letter to Wesley.

I didn’t have the time for perfection. I needed to get the words that were in my head onto a piece of paper before I forgot them. This wasn’t the time for perfection. This was the time for honesty, for messy and chaotic, and all the things I was on the inside.

When the letter was done, I stretched my arms above my head, wiggling my fingers to release the tension from writing so furiously for so long. Then I climbed out of my chair, leaving my room and heading downstairs to the kitchen for dinner.

It was a Thursday, and on Thursdays, we ate in the kitchen at the counter, and we always had pizza. Most people had pizza on Fridays, but Jack insisted Thursday was the better pizza day, because since everyone else did it on Fridays, it was less busy at the pizzeria on Thursdays. So, we would get our pizza faster, and it would be better quality. I did not know if there was any truth in his theory, but I enjoyed our Thursday night pizza nights and looked forward to them every week.

I grabbed two slices of pizza—one veggie and one ham and pineapple—and took my spot on the middle bar stool, in between Jack and Shirley. I made sure to put my square plate so it sat within the perimeter of four of the square tiles on the countertop, just as I always did when I eat at the counter.

I didn’t pay attention to Jack and Shirley’s conversation, my mind still back in my room, thinking about the letter sitting on my desk, waiting to be put into an envelope, stamped, and sent off into the world. But in order to do that, I needed to ask for help.

I looked between Jack and Shirley, observing the people who had made me feel more at home than anyone else ever had. They had shown me more love and care in one year than I had ever felt in the rest of my years combined. If I could give Wesley, a boy who accidentally hurt me, a second chance, shouldn’t I be able to give two people who had only ever tried to help me a first chance?

I cleared my throat, sitting a little straighter on my stool, readying myself. “Um… Mom? Dad? I need to mail a letter,” I said.

I’d never understood the saying “silence is louder than words” until I let those two words slip out of my mouth. Both of them froze mid-action, their eyes wide and glistening. Jack—Dad—swallowed thickly. His gentle green eyes with the small wrinkles at the corner met Shirley’s—Mom’s—over the top of my head.

He blinked a few times, his surprise clear on his face, before he spoke to me, his hand covering mine on the counter. “Yeah. Yeah, of course, sweetie. Whatever you need.”

He smiled at me, his face a mix of hope and joy, and when I looked at Mom, she wore a matching expression, although she had a few small tears escaping her blue eyes.

She said nothing, though. She just tucked a stray hair behind my ear, then slipped around the island into the kitchen, opening the freezer and taking out a tub of my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

She didn’t need words to tell me how she felt. I could see it in her actions, and in the way she kept looking over at me, her warm gaze putting another crack in the crumbling walls around my heart.