Jessie thought that she and Chris needed a break. Just for a week. Just to get a little perspective before graduation. Chris seemed to think they should get married right away, but she thought he was wrong. Why? Because Chris was being scouted for a full-ride baseball scholarship and could likely end up playing in the big leagues. She thought that she would just weigh him down, regardless of how often he told her that she would only make his life complete. And she was pretty sure her own college and career aspirations would not work out if she followed Chris off to college, since his school didn’t have the environmental conservation major she had her heart set on. Besides, she wasn’t really sure what she could truly offer him since she thought of her upbringing as “white trash” and was embarrassed to even bring him into her home, which was dangerously full of her mom’s hoarding piles.
When Chris disappeared, though, Jessie had to find the courage to speak out about the secrets Chris had been keeping and to dig deeper. She knew that Chris had been jumped a few weeks prior, by some other local baseball players who accused him of only getting a scholarship because he was black. Even though she told the police about how they had used hate speech while they attacked him, and that she was concerned that those same guys were involved in his disappearance (since he was running in that same area when he disappeared), the police seemed content to think he ran away. After all, those other guys came from good families and had an alibi for the night in question…
Every week, Chris had written Jessie a love letter. As she struggled to work through her emotions and to try and figure out what happened to Chris, she decided to write him a letter of her own — but she insisted that it was NOT a love letter. If he wanted a love letter, he would need to come back to her. This book would make a great conversation starter about racism, mental health, friendships/relationships, communication, and more.
Happy Reading!
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