“You’re a teacher?” He looked genuinely interested. God, it had been so long since a man had asked me about myself and looked genuinely interested. It did something to me, made me want things, but he wasn’t the guy to want things with. I wanted a family and he was the life of the party. I liked old-time jazz music and he liked classic rock. I liked to knit and he liked to mow the lawn practically naked. I didn’t have time to waste on a gorgeous guy who would only distract me from my goals.
“Yeah,” I said. “Ninth-grade English.”
His smile was soft and sweet. “I bet all the guys are in love with you and all of the girls want to be you.”
That made me laugh. “Clearly, you’ve forgotten what it was like to be a teenager. I’m the old lady who makes them put their phones away and pay attention when what they really want to do is flirt with each other.”
“You don’t even know how fucking gorgeous you are, do you?”
I could feel myself getting sucked in by his flirty charisma and charm and I knew it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I wasn’t the sexy, beautiful woman he said I was. I was the little girl who’d had to grow up too fast because her parents expected her to be independent and her sister died too young, leaving them a bit broken. I was the girl who worked her way through college because there was no time to party when she knew her nephew was being destroyed piece by piece by his monster of a father. I was the girl who’d had to be a mom before she was ready, but now wasn’t quite sure how to be anything else, how to be alone without someone who needed to be cared for. “I don’t think you see me clearly at all,” I said, wishing I was wrong, even as I acknowledged how ridiculous that wish was. “I need to get home.”
“I blew it, didn’t I?” he asked. “You still hate me?”
I wished I could hate him, that would be easier. “I just think it’s better if we’re neighbors who say hello and that’s it.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took a step back. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
I walked out of his house and back to mine, feeling a bit like I’d lost something important.