Page 48 of How We Fooled

“So what? Age is just a number.”

I shake my head. “No, we aren’t Aaliyah and R. Kelly. Age does matter.”

Eli drops his head with a sigh. “No. We are nowhere near Aaliyah and R. Kelly. She was only fifteen, and he was something crazy, like twenty-seven.”

“That’s only four years older than I am now!”

“And I’m three years older than her.” He stands, holding out his arms to each side. “Do I look eighteen?”

“That’s not the point!” I place my head in my hands and start to cry.

He instantly drops to his knees, placing his fingers over mine, trying to remove them from my face so I can see him. “I love you. And I know you love me too.”

Tears just stream down my face. I’ve wanted to tell him so many times exactly how I feel, but didn’t want to be the first one to say it. In all the ways I imagined telling him, this was definitely not one of them.

“Do you love me?” he asks again, his expression pleading for me to tell him what he’s dying to know.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath in. Then open them and see him, the man I’ve come to love so much that it hurts, and seeing him in pain like this only breaks my heart more.

“I do love you,” I say through broken words and tears.

He engulfs me in his arms so fast that I drop back on the bed with him wrapped around me. In one swoop, he picks me up, repositioning us so I’m curled in his arms.

“That’s all that matters. We’ll figure this out. Don’t overthink it. As long as you love me, it’s all worth it.”

I hold on to his arms tightly, needing the comfort he gives me in this moment.

I have no clue what we are going to do, but he’s right. I love him so much that it terrifies me. Every day that went by, I felt it more and more. He’s it. He’s the one for me.

But how? How can we possibly make this work now?

Tears flow freely as I lie, wrapped in his arms.

“Turn around,” he whispers in my ear.

I close my eyes tightly, willing the tears to stop and turn around to face him. When I open them and look into his, the tears fall even faster. The pain I see in them I know reflects my own, but seeing it on him breaks my heart even more.

He wipes them away with his thumb. “Please don’t cry,” he whispers as he blinks away his own emotions. “I meant what I said. I was already thinking about telling you how much I love you on my way here today.”

I nod, my voice incapable of words right now.

“We’ll figure this out. We have to.”

I curl into him, burying my head in his chest.

“I can tell them I changed my mind and I don’t want the job,” I say more to myself than him.

“Don’t you dare. I won’t come between you and why you’re here in the first place. This is your dream.”

I lean back to look in his eyes, feeling better about my decision. “My dream was to teach elementary school. I can ask if they have anything open in a younger grade. We didn’t even really discuss it.”

He shakes his head while running his hand down my hair, tucking it behind my ear. “No. This is where God put you. Just like he put you in my arms right now. You need to take the job. We’ll figure this out.” A small tilt grows on his lips. “I just realized I’ll be secretly dating the hot new teacher. Every guy is going to want you.”

His words make me laugh out loud.

“This could be fun. Maybe we can sneak around in your classroom?” He raises his eyebrows up and down a few times, making me laugh even harder.

“No way in hell.” I know he thinks the idea is playful, but it only turns my stomach. “Eli, I can’t be that teacher who dates her students. No one can know.”

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