Lizzie continued to stare at me, her fire slowly fading away.
I couldn’t tell how she felt about it.
“Now, answer my question.”
She rested her elbow on the table and cupped her chin with her hand. “I grabbed your book off the shelf to read it, and I saw what you wrote to her.”
I realized my mistake in not telling Emerson that Lizzie wanted to read my book. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. That was my fault for not thinking ahead when I wrote that to her, knowing she wasn’t the only person living in that apartment. “Why are you confronting me instead of your mother?”
“Because you’re the one who wrote it.”
I gave a slight nod in understanding. “I meant what I said, Lizzie. She’s…the love of my life.” I couldn’t believe I was saying this to a twelve-year-old, but I’d become more comfortable with her since we’d established our own relationship over the last month. She was kind of like a friend, in a way.
Lizzie seemed to appreciate that I spoke to her like an adult rather than a child, and she rose to the occasion, being mature about the situation. “So, when I asked if you liked my mom…you lied?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I did.”
“Why?”
“Your mother wasn’t ready to tell you about us.”
“Us?” she asked. “As in…you’re together?”
I felt like I’d crossed the line by having this conversation with her, but it was happening, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Emerson wouldn’t be back for thirty minutes, and I couldn’t just end the conversation and have us sit in silence. “Yes.”
“How long?”
“Um…a couple months. But I felt this way about her for a while before that.”
She dropped her hand then started to play with her nails. “So…that’s why you offered to tutor me?”
Now this was getting really heavy, and I didn’t want to say anything to chase her away. “Yes. I don’t have a lot of experience with kids, and I thought teaching you would be a great way for us to have our own relationship. I’ve considered it to be successful because we seem to get along pretty well.”
She dropped her gaze, like she didn’t agree.
My heart started to race because I could see the pain on her face. I was scared, scared that I’d lost her trust. “I didn’t mean to deceive you—”
“Did you mean anything you said about me? Or were you just trying to get me to like you?” She turned back to me, her eyes filled with heartbreak.
My eyes started to mirror hers because I could feel her pain, could absorb it the way I did with Emerson, because…I really cared. “Lizzie, you’ve been getting A’s on everything you’ve been doing in class. You went from being a C- student to an A, and you’re the one taking those quizzes and doing those worksheets, not me. Yes, I meant what I said. And your success is proof of that, if you don’t believe me.”
The unease slowly left her face, the logic making her realize everything between us was real. She took a breath like the weight left her shoulders, like her belief in herself returned because my praise was genuine.
“Lizzie, you’re very bright, and I’ve really enjoyed teaching you. You remind me a lot of myself, actually. I’ve always learned things differently from my peers. My dad used to help me, and it always made a lot more sense coming from him because he’s like me.”
“Yeah?” she whispered. “So, I can be like you someday?”
“Absolutely.”
Her confidence returned, along with a faint smile. “I’ve been doing better in my other classes too because I’m really trying. I don’t know what I want to do yet, but now I definitely want to go to college.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that.”
“Maybe I could go to Harvard like you.”
“Yes. You can make that happen if you want.”
She smiled then turned back to her notebook and stared at the doodles for a while.
I didn’t know what to say now, but at least Lizzie and I were okay.
After a while, she turned back to me. “Mom has never had a boyfriend before.”
I stared at her.
“I have some friends at school who have stepdads and stuff, and they don’t really like them.”
I started to get uneasy again.
“But I like you. It makes me happy to know that you love my mom, that you make her happy. She’s been different for a while, and now I understand why. She smiles more, she’s not as tired after work, and when we go do stuff on the weekends, she’s just…more upbeat. Don’t tell her I said this, but…she’s a good mom. I know I tease her a lot, but she’s always been there for me, and she works really hard to give me a good life. My friends at school tell me horror stories about their parents, and I can’t relate at all because Mom isn’t like that.”