"The letter for this month, obviously," Estelle said with a matter-of-fact tone. "He would have written you a reply after getting your letter but since we were already heading back, he decided to hold back and surprise you instead."
There was a long pause after that as Noelle's brain worked quickly to put together everything Estelle had just said.
'Letters for this month…letters. We exchange letters every month…but I had never written him any letters….'
Seeing Noelle in a daze, Estelle called out to her before waving her hand in front of her.
The young girl was about to pull her hand back when Noelle suddenly grabbed it.
The way she suddenly grabbed her hand startled Estelle and if she wasn't sure that the person in front of her was Noelle, she would have forcefully pulled her hands back.
She really didn't like the feeling of someone grabbing her hands, but since it was Noelle, she endured it.
"The letters you mentioned…..I mean, the letters I wrote to him, you have at least one of them, right?" She asked as her grip on Estelle loosened.
"How did you know?"
Estelle was shocked that she could guess that and was now looking at her like she was some godly mind reader.
Seeing her reaction, Noelle rolled her eyes inwardly.
From what she knew about Estelle, she was someone who loved to stick her nose into anything relating to her brother and unless she had changed in the last three years, it wasn't out of the ordinary that she would have a few of the letters that 'she wrote' to her brother.
Despite what she was thinking, she smiled at Estelle and said, "Can I see one of the letters?"
Seeing her calm reaction, Estelle had a bad feeling and apprehensively took two steps back.
"You're not going to tell my brother, right?"
Once again, Noelle rolled her eyes inwardly.
The letters in her possession were probably the ones Adrian left lying around for her after confirming them to be okay for her to read. To put it simply, it was just an act of a big brother indulging his nosy little sister.
Poor, Estelle probably still wasn't aware that everything she was doing was under her brother's control.
"No, I won't, I promise," Noelle said, playing along with her.
Estelle seemed to hesitate for a while before responding.
"Okay fine, it was your letter to begin with."
After saying that, she quickly raced downstairs like she had just made a very difficult decision and just wanted to get it over with.
About fifteen minutes later, Noelle was sitting on her holding a letter, her eyes glued to the contents.
The longer she read the harder her free left hand tightened into a fist.
This was her handwriting, her tone of writing and everything here would be just how she would have written it.
If she wasn't a hundred percent sure that she had never written anything like this before, even she would have believed that this letter was written by herself.
What was going on?
She didn't know, but one thing was certain, this was definitely orchestrated by someone.
Someone who knew her well enough, well enough to know her handwriting down to the last details, her personality and the way she thought of Adrian and talked to him. This person didn't just know her well enough, he also knew Adrian well enough to be able to deceive him for three whole years.
But who was it and why?
Her mind was too chaotic to think things through at the moment.
'Adrian has to see this.'
She had just gotten to the door when she suddenly paused.
'No, he can't know about this, at least not now.'
They had a match the day after tomorrow and suddenly springing up to tell him that the person he had been exchanging letters with for the past three years had never been her would surely shake him to the core.
Something like this would surely affect his form, and that would affect the game; she wouldn't want that, and she was sure he wouldn't want that either.
With a sigh of resignation, she dragged her body back to her bed and lay down, slowly curling into a ball.
She was wrong.
She thought he lied, that she never meant that much to him, and he was only back now because he regretted it, but who would have thought…..
Just thinking about how he received letters like this from someone else for three years thinking it was her, her heart felt like there was a huge stone weighing on it.
"That note back then was probably also fake." She muttered.
As the night deepened, a young girl lay curled on her bed, muffling her sobs as tears streamed down her face. In her sobs, there was anguish but also relief; she only stopped after she grew tired and fell asleep.
A lot had happened tonight but the unaware Adrian woke up the next day with a lot on his mind.
He would usually start his day with a morning run but he didn't really feel like it today.
Fortunately, this house came fully equipped with a gym.
He had a light run on the treadmill to get his body up and running before joining his mother and sister in the living room for breakfast.
"You missed out on a massive surprise by not following us next door last night." Estelle turned to his brother with a mischievous smile.
"Are you talking about the fact that our neighbours are Noelle's family?" Adrian responded nonchalantly.
"Bis sis…..Huh? How did you know?" Estelle was dumbfounded.
Adrian wasn't in the mood to entertain her tricks and didn't even bother looking at her.
"I'm done." He said before getting up from his seat.
Mira had a troubled expression on her face as she looked at her son.
He said he was done but he barely touched his food.
The truth was, Adrian didn't really feel like eating anything.
"I have an appointment with my teammates in an hour so I'll be leaving now."
After saying that, he turned and made his way upstairs.
If Mira had noticed Adrian's weird mood, then so had Estelle, who was sensitive to anything regarding her brother.
"Mom, big brother's acting weird."
"Don't worry about it, he'll talk if there's something really bothering him."
"I hope so." Estelle glanced at the stairs with a worried expression.
Adrian got ready and left the house in less than twenty minutes.
When he was passing by Noelle's house, his movement slowed down considerably.
To be honest, he really wanted to knock and ask if she wanted to walk to school with him but he was aware that he would most likely be rejected.
With a sigh, he turned away and was about to start walking when the gate was pulled open, revealing Noelle in her usual track outfit and with a pair of wired earphones in her ears.
Adrian made eye contact with her the moment he spotted her and his lips subconsciously curled into a smile.
"Good morning."