I Stole Her Love Letter to Get Into MIT

The poorest kid in school got an anonymous love letter. The whole class said the handwriting was mine. I opened my mouth to tell them they had it wrong.

Then a line of text drifted across my vision. Like a livestream chat nobody else could see. [That letter is going to save him.

He gets into MIT.] [After that he becomes the richest man in Seattle.] [Too bad somebody else actually wrote it.] [And when the villainess who stole the credit gets exposed, he destroys her with his own hands.] I swallowed the words it wasn't me.

I did not care about the richest man in Seattle. But MIT. That was MIT. I lifted my chin and smiled at him. "You're right.

I wrote it." "I've had a crush on you for a long time." Chapter 1 The second I said it, nobody in that room made a sound.

Callum Shaw finished high school on free lunch and fee waivers. He sat in the back row behind thick black frames, and he had a way of looking at people that kept them off him.

Nobody talked to him. Ever. When they saw the letter, the whole class started hooting. Not one girl claimed it. Getting friendly with a nobody was a fast way to become one.

They were still ragging on him, asking whether somebody had written it as a prank, when the comments showed up. Most of it was noise I couldn't follow. I caught three letters. MIT.

Callum held my eyes. His were very dark, and you could see white under his irises. With nothing on his face, it was a little unnerving. "You wrote this?" He sounded unsure. "Yep.

That's my handwriting." He didn't put the letter away. He set it on my desk beside my open notebook and lined the two up. He looked at them for a long time.

Long enough that I thought he was about to call me out. Then he folded the letter and slid it into his pocket.

Whoever wrote it didn't want to be recognized, so the whole page was careful block print, neat and stripped of anything personal, which happens to be exactly how I write, because my mom drilled my handwriting into me when I was little. [Oh my GOD, there she is.

The villainess. Shameless. Stealing the female lead's love letter.] [Doesn't matter.

Once she's exposed, the male lead and the female lead humiliate her so hard she can't show her face in Seattle.] I was the villainess? How evil could I possibly be.

I just wanted to get into MIT. Come on. It was MIT. Application season was a year out. One year to drag my grades all the way up to MIT.

Without him I would never get near that door. If the male lead walked me in, my mom would tell the entire block.

I propped my chin on my hand and beamed at him. "Callum, I've liked you for a long time.

Would you give me a shot?" "I'm not dating anyone before graduation." He slid the letter back across the desk and put his head down over his math worksheet.

The room broke into noise. I let it wash right over me. Not before graduation? So it wasn't a no. What can I say. We villainesses have confidence.

If a secret crush wasn't working, I'd do it out loud.

I brought Callum breakfast every morning for a week, because the only thing he ever made himself was a packet of the cheapest instant coffee, so every morning it was a different pastry and a carton of milk from me instead.

He'd give me that helpless look and take it anyway, because throwing food out was worse. Between classes he stopped by my desk. "Stop bringing me things.

I don't have anything to give you back." "I don't want anything. I like you. That's the whole reason." "..." He frowned and walked off fast. The tips of his ears were pink.

Like a rabbit. After school. I followed Callum with a letter of my own in my hand. The comments called me shameless. Said I was harassing the male lead. I pretended not to see.

Does dignity get you into MIT? I kept asking what food he liked. What else he liked. "Callum, I wrote you another letter. Want to read it?" He ignored me.

I must have worn him down, because he finally turned around and looked at me. "Wren.

What is it you even like about me?" Chapter 2 "Your grades." He looked down. "My family has nothing. My parents are gone, my grandma's sick.

Being with me would be hard on you, and I don't have time to mess around. You should go." "I don't mind.

None of that was your choice." What you're born into doesn't decide where you end up. Something flickered through those tired eyes of his.

He said nothing for so long that I figured he was angry. "Look, if you really don't want to, that's fine. Tomorrow I'll—" ask again. I didn't get to finish.

Callum took the letter out of my hand. "I'll think about it. Stop writing letters.

Study." I leaned in, eyes bright. "So will you study with me?" He turned his face away, uncomfortable under all that staring. "Fine." Gym class.

They were short a player for pickup basketball, so Callum went in. I almost never saw him do anything with a group. He took it seriously. He sank shot after shot.

Coming down off a jump, the wind caught the hem of his shirt. I got a look at his abs. Pale, too. He won. I brought him a water bottle. Everybody around us started whooping.

The student council president laughed. "Wren, he already turned you down.

You're still on this?" The guy from the team said, "When a girl's doing the chasing, she's already halfway there. You wouldn't get it." Callum took the water.

He let the noise go by and asked me: "Did you finish your SAT vocab?" "..." I had not, because he'd been assigning me work, everything from whole subjects down to how many problems I was supposed to do between periods. "Almost.

I got distracted watching you play." "I was on the court fifteen minutes. Who were you watching the other thirty?" He looked down at me and held it.

The pressure coming off him was unreal. I hadn't been watching anyone. I'd been zoning out. But he seemed jealous. "Are you mad?" "No." He tipped the bottle back.

I bit down on a smile and leaned close to his ear. "Callum, I found one more thing I like about you.

You've got a great body. "If I make top twenty next time, can I touch your abs?" He choked on the water. "You—" "I'm going to go do SAT vocab!" I laughed and ran for the shade.

When I looked back, the red had climbed all the way up his face. Callum could not take a joke. At the library one night I bumped his leg by accident. That was enough to do it too.

Practice test scores came back. I made top twenty in my year. I went to collect. His ears were red. "You weren't specific.

I think it should be top twenty in the whole school." I made a face. Guess I wasn't touching anything. [Can this trash villainess stop copping a feel?

Acting like she's never seen a man. If she's that desperate she can find someone on an app.] [The villainess is a joke. The male lead is saving himself for the female lead.

Like he'd ever let her touch him.] Saving himself. I sat very still for a second, and I never brought up that reward again.

Callum ran a tight ship, and if I missed a task he made me redo it, dead serious about all of it, and then he'd hold my current scores up against what MIT wanted and tell me to move.

Like I was already his girlfriend and the two of us had a date at MIT lined up. We stayed at the library too late one night and I fell asleep with my head on the table.

In the dream. I saw Callum with another girl. After he found out I'd stolen the letter.

Chapter 3 He was already the kind of man who ran everything, and he'd made sure I could never find work. I was coming apart with regret. Then I jolted awake.

Callum sat up straight beside me, still marking my problem set. He'd pulled my math score up a lot that spring.

He finished the page and some of the tension left his forehead. "Not bad. Only one of the long ones wrong this time." "Do I get a reward?" The dream had rattled me.

I needed something. He stammered. "What— what kind of reward?" "Something I don't normally get, obviously." Callum pressed his lips together and checked the room.

His ears were red. "There are too many people here." "So what if there are people?" "You—" He hesitated, then reached for the hem of his shirt.

I stood up and started packing my bag. "Since I'm improving, reward me by letting me go home early.

I haven't slept properly in weeks." He stared. "That's the reward you wanted?" "Yep." "Oh." His head dropped. He looked almost annoyed about it.

With Callum running my schedule, my grades took off. The people who used to laugh at me stopped.

They were surprised by how fast I climbed, and more surprised that the kid on free lunch gave me the time of day, but they didn't get it, because you can't stay cold to someone who feeds you.

That whole year I spent every dollar of my allowance on food for him, and I looked after him when he got sick. His face finally filled out a little.

I crushed the SAT and my finals, both. Graduation party. I'd bought him a gift, a thankyou for a year of dragging me uphill. The party ended and he never came.

I was about to call him when the comments started flying. [YESSS the male lead met the female lead at his summer job!] [Does anyone understand how gorgeous our girl is?

So much easier on the eyes than the villainess. Can we write the villainess out already?] [I'm feral over this. So sweet.

They're on the same shifts now, they're going to fall so hard.] I turned my phone face down. The box in my hands had a pair of sneakers in it. I wasn't going to be handing it over.

I'd tested him before. Asked him, half joking: "Callum, have you decided yet? When are you going to say yes to me?" Every time, he looked at the floor and said nothing.

No answer is its own answer. I scrolled up through our messages. The day before, we'd been guessing at our scores together. I sent him one more.

Me: [Callum, thank you for everything this year.] Then I blocked him. He was never going to like me anyway. The villainess should stop standing in their way. I got into MIT.

The day the acceptance email popped up. My dad wanted to announce it to the whole world. The senior group chat would not stop. Callum got in too. He never said a word in there.

Busy with the female lead, probably.

All summer the graduation money from relatives piled up, and by movein day I showed up very pleased with myself, new laptop and new phone in hand. Orientation week.

The sun had my cheeks burning. Then I spotted Callum in the group next to ours. Tall. Pale. Impossible to miss. He looked better than he used to, maybe because of the contacts.

His whole face was out in the open now, sharp and cold. That heavy stare. Like a yandere out of a comic. My hand came up on its own to wave.

Halfway there, the comments rolled through. [AHHH the female lead goes to this school too!] [The summer arc was so sweet. Campus arc next!] I put my hand back down.

Chapter 4 Sure enough, meeting the female lead changed everything. Lunch break. Everyone headed for the dining hall. A very thin girl walked over to say hi to Callum.

They talked and laughed, and they were carrying the same water bottle. That had to be the female lead the comments kept going on about. Iris Hale. She really was pretty.

Big eyes, no makeup. Then Callum's eyes came up and landed on mine. I froze, halfway to saying something. He looked away and left with Iris. Like he'd never met me.

Had he already found out I stole the letter? My pulse kicked, and something sat heavy and tight under my ribs.

That night, orientation icebreakers, two freshman groups thrown together. Everyone sat facing each other. Of course. Callum was across the circle, one seat over.

Whoever lost a round either performed or answered a question. Callum's turn came and he took the question.

The girls started shouting, pushing the orientation leader until he asked it. "Do you have a girlfriend?" Callum was quiet for a beat. "I do." He said it like he meant it, and he never once looked over here.

Something hot pushed up under my ribs and sat there. The girls groaned in disappointment. The one behind me muttered, "Obviously. The hot ones are always taken." Yeah.

He's the male lead of this book. The rest of us NPCs should stay out of it.

The comments went off screaming, saying Callum must have fallen for the female lead over the summer, saying they couldn't wait for her to figure it out.

Iris still hadn't told him the letter was hers? My stomach turned over. I thought about walking up and confessing. Then the ball stopped in my hands. I didn't react fast enough.

Lost the round. I picked the game. The card said: pick a guy and make him blush. Honestly, easy. I looked around. I didn't know a single freshman here. Callum, forget it.

He'd never help me. I was still deciding. Callum glanced over at me, and there was a light in his eyes. I pointed in his general direction. "I pick him.

That okay?" The orientation leader said, "Sure." Callum started to get up, and an upperclassman stepped in front of him. "Wren.

This is a job for me." Marcus Bennett leaned in, grinning. He was the first person I met at this school, because he carried my boxes in. He'd been very friendly about it.

The reason was that he wanted me on the debate team. I said no. Arguments aren't my thing. I lose every single one.

He kept pushing anyway, and he came around to bother me constantly.

Marcus planted himself in front of me and tipped his head. "Let's see how you plan to make me blush." I thought about it. About all the things that used to work on Callum.

His ears were always the weak spot. I leaned close to Marcus's ear and said it quietly. "Your fly is down." A second later.

His head snapped down, and the red shot straight up his face. Got him. Everyone laughed. They all wanted to know what I'd said. I kept it to myself and looked mysterious.

Partway through I went to the restroom. The one by the field has bad lighting. I didn't like it in there. In and out.

On my way back there was a figure under the tree. "Marcus, could you please stop…" trying to talk me into the debate club. I didn't finish. I got close enough to see it was Callum.

That face of his was darker than usual. I started to step around him. The comments exploded. [IT'S HAPPENING.

The male lead is checking up on her!] [Did he find out about the letter??] [The villainess is getting exposed.

I have waited this entire book for today.] Chapter 5 Callum blocked my way. His voice came out cold. "Wren.

Are you moving on to somebody else now?" "That's a lot of interest from a guy who was pretending not to know me