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The color of his words felt suddenly off This felt far too forward

I shookhim any details about my life I had just moved to the area, and didn’t knoell Perhaps he was a crook, eager to takethat so long as I remained at the school, I’d be safe I just had to knock him off the scent

“Listen, I don’t know you—” I said, chuckling slightly at his good try

“But we can change that,” he returned “Alive one another our names”

“I just don’t knohat good it would do,” I said, finding ers for the rest of our lives”

“Not if I can help it,” he said, his thick eyebrows rising high on his forehead

Suddenly, I heard my name from behind—far back at the entrance of the school Soer as far as the road I knocked htly, as if he were a hot oven I’d accidentally touched

“I’d better be getting back to work,” I told hi”

“Terribly interesting I’ll take that,” he said, bringing his hand to his forehead in a kind of salute “Lord knows I’ve had worse”

“Good luck out there,” I told hi back toward the door My heart haue of theinI almost never considered, since I hadn’t dated in al

But then, I found myself at the door of the school, face-to-face with Rita Ratchet, another American teacher at the school She eyedher arms over her chest Almost twenty years older than me, she often had opinions about my movements, my decisions Unsolicited advice poured out of her mouth like a waterfall

“What were you doing with that young man down there?” she asked me, her voice stern and Midwestern She was from Minnesota, not far from my South Dakotan home

“Oh, it was just so squeezed “He told ”