Cody had been on high alert all day. By the time the final bell rang for home time, he felt more exhausted than normal.

For the past six hours, he'd been examining everyone around him as closely as possible, searching for any indication of who may have written the love letter. His effort had resulted in very little, if nothing at all. He did notice that that rich girl Dakota had been unusually quiet, but that could be something else entirely.

Of course, he couldn't help but snatch the opportunity to steal a glance or two at Noah.

Noah barely paid attention to him, but that suited him just fine. He wasn't that good at talking to people without embarrassing himself. Plus, he had no idea on how to approach him, anyway. Whenever he tried to urge himself on, his nerves always failed him at the last second.

"Hey, Cody. Mind if I walk home with you?"

Gwen, one of only two girls in the school willing to actually befriend him, came up behind him and gave his shoulder a little nudge.

"Hm? Oh yeah, sure…"

They set off down the sidewalk. Gwen peered at his face curiously.

"Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah? Why do you ask?"

"You just have this funny look on your face," Gwen replied, her voice even and cautious as it was whenever she was trying to work out what to say next. "Are you ill?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Are you constipated?"

"What? No!" Cody wrinkled his nose in disgust. Gwen elbowed him playfully.

"Nah, I'm just teasing. You just look really deep in thought about something. What's on your mind? If Duncan's giving you crap again-"

"No, it's not Duncan." Cody chewed his bottom lip, contemplating whether or not he should tell her.

"Then what is it?"

"Uhh, I…" He breathed in deeply. "I got a love letter."

Gwen gasped. "Ohmigod. No way. Who's it from?"

"I don't know. It's anonymous."

"Do you still have it? I wanna see!"

Cody fished it out of his bag and handed it to her. She smoothed out the wrinkles in the paper and read the whole thing once, twice, three times. Not saying a word, her mouth twisted and turned, a sign that she was in deep thought.

When she reached the end of the letter, her face softened quickly, like butter left out in the sun. "Cody, you need to find whoever wrote this, and treasure them forever."

Cody smiled a little. "I will. It's just…" He rubbed the back of his neck as his thoughts drifted to Noah. For some reason, all he could picture was Noah's face whenever he was concentrating on his schoolwork, or a really good book.

"Just what?" Gwen raised an eyebrow.

"I, uh…I don't know if the person I'm in love with is the same one who wrote this or not…"

"And who is it you're in love with?"

Cody gave her a serious look. "You won't tell anyone, right?"

"I promise I won't."

"Okay." Cody inhaled sharply. "It's…Noah. I'm in love with Noah."

"Oh. Okay." Gwen didn't seem all that surprised. She just turned her attention back to the letter and began to scrutinize it harder.

Cody watched her, her face once again remaining completely neutral. He wondered what was going on inside her head. And how she was able to pull off such an amazing poker face.

"You know," Gwen spoke up suddenly, "I think Noah did write this, after all."

His heart skipped several beats. "I - how do you know?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "Just a gut feeling." She cracked a smile. "You should ask him."

"NO!" He surprised even himself with that outburst. Immediately, he clapped his hands over his mouth.

Gwen reeled back. "Okay, I was just teasing when I said that last thing. You don't have to confess, if you really don't want to."

Cody still got the impression that she would force a confession out of him anyway.

Gwen scanned the letter again. "It says that they'll write again. Maybe their next letter will give us some more clues."

Now that was something to look forward to. "Yeah," the corners of his mouth turned up at the thought. "Yeah, that'll be nice."