Page 49 of How We Fooled

“No one’s going to know. I promise. Only my teammates know about you, and none of them live here.”

“You haven’t told your friends about me?”

Hearing this sits wrong with me. Why wouldn’t he have told anyone?

He shakes his head, moving slightly to see me fully. “I told you, I wanted to keep you all to myself. They know I’m a private guy. I’m not one to spill my business, so they don’t ask. I’m so busy with baseball every summer anyway, so they haven’t even suspected anything.”

“If anyone finds out …” My stomach turns again.

“They won’t. We only have ten months. That’s it. Ten months of sneaking around could be fun.”

“Oh my God, your parents.”

“My parents already love you. They’ve told me so. My mom is over the moon that I finally found someone who’s special to me. I’ll tell them so they know what’s going on.”

“No, don’t tell them.” Shame and panic hit me like a ton of bricks.

“I have to tell them, but they’ll know more than anyone that our relationship had nothing to do with you being a teacher and everything to do with us falling in love before we knew any of that. It’s going to be just fine. I promise.”

“How can you promise that?”

“Because it has to be. I can’t live without you.”

Hearing him say that makes more tears fall, and he pulls me closer to him.

“Please don’t cry.”

He kisses the top of my head as I curl into him more. He’s right. I can’t live without him either, but I don’t know if I can do this. It’s easy for him to say we can keep it a secret, but it’s not his life he’s putting on the line. If we get caught, he’ll be considered the stud who dated his teacher, and I’ll be labeled a pedophile à la Mary Kay Letourneau.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Liza

Eli begged me to come back to his house to talk to his parents about the situation we’d found ourselves in, but I needed some time to process this on my own first.

I thought about calling my sister, then my best friend from back home, but decided against it. Since they haven’t met Eli, they won’t understand. I can’t just break it off with him. There’s no way. Just the thought of doing so feels like my world is splitting in two.

How can one person change my life so significantly in such a short time?

I’m too ashamed to talk to my aunt about it. Not yet anyway.

Instead, I grab my keys and head out for a drive, having no clue where I’ll go, but needing to do something.

I drive around aimlessly, going over everything in my head.

How could I have not known his age? How come I never asked?

Because it didn’t matter, pops in my head, but I shake it away.

It should matter. It does matter.

But he’s of legal age.

Yeah, but just barely. What will people think of me? Talk about small-town gossip! I’ll be the talk of two small towns, if not the entire state of Montana!

If I don’t break it off with him and anyone finds out, I’ll never teach anywhere again. All I’ve ever wanted was to be a teacher.

But I’ve always wanted to be in love more.

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