Page 119 of The Ruse

I know I’m not usually super shy around guys but in that moment I kind of panicked and had no idea what to do. He’s older and everyone was watching us. Like, what if my dad was watching the game and saw it? But Elijah just kind of looked at me as if asking if it was okay and I nodded yes, and he leaned over and gave me one of the sweetest first kisses I’ve ever had.

Ahhh!!!!!!

Like, I had hundreds of butterflies flapping in my stomach and thought everyone watching us would know how excited I was.

Anyway, he put his arm around me for the rest of the game. I could barely concentrate on the actual game because I literally felt like my whole body was full of little fireworks sparking.

We got on the subway together and he held my hand as he walked me the rest of the way home. It was totally like a date from a movie!

Anyway, I had him take me to Alisha’s penthouse down the street from my parents’ house, since I didn’t want him to accidentally run into my mom or dad and figure out that I still live with them because I’m in high school.

I was planning to say good night on the front steps and then go inside to wait for him to leave so I could sneak back home. But when I went to hug him, he ended up kissing me, and let’s just say it was not the same kind of kiss he’d given me for the kiss cam.

It was so good!!!

Okay, so she saw that guy from the club again. I looked up to find the guy’s name.

Elijah.

Was he important to the mystery? I thought the older guy she’d dated before we became close had lived in Eden Falls and not New York.

But maybe I’d just assumed that?

I skimmed through the next few entries to see if this Elijah guy showed up again. And sure enough, he was the star of the next several entries since that date to the Yankee’s game was just the first of many.

So maybe he was important to her story?

September 8

Remember how I wrote in my last journal entry about how sad I was that Elijah was moving out of state for his new teaching job and that I wouldn’t be able to visit him in New York during the school breaks?

Well…I guess I probably should have asked him more details about where he was going and what he would be doing with his science degree because I walked into my AP biology class this morning and found out that my new professor was none other than Elijah!!!

Wait…

I stopped reading and shook my head.

Was Bailee’s secret older boyfriend our biology teacher? Professor Hicks?

Yeah, so that was a big surprise.

He didn’t notice me when I first walked in, and I tried to hide in the back. But then he called roll and got to my name and…

Oh my gosh! It was so bad. The way he just stared at me in shock as I raised my hand.

Like, he looked so surprised to see me in his class. To realize that I was actually a high school junior and not the college student I’d led him to believe I was.

Anyway, he taught class, and I tried to figure out what I was going to do and how I was going to explain that I hadn’t left New York to go to college in Connecticut like he assumed.

I mean, I’d been trying to come clean that last night together. To tell him that I was really in high school.

But when I brought up school in Connecticut, he somehow assumed I was going to Yale, and I decided that I might as well just let him continue to believe that and avoid him feeling all weird about dating a high schooler the past two weeks.

I thought it would be okay to leave it like that because I never expected to see him again.

But obviously, that wasn’t how things turned out since karma is stupid.

So anyway, I stayed behind after the bell rang to try to explain everything. But he was so mad and looked so freaked out and told me I needed to leave.

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