There is space to think in an empty classroom, the right kind of air. Hazel really did think it might be fine this time, or saw, at least, a flash of possibility. She knew someone who knew someone who had made it work, or maybe that was just a rumor. She thought things had changed, just enough. In truth, she thought their plan to tell him was sort of beautiful, romantic even, until it wasn’t. Now it looked like something else, something reckless and naive. Hazel thinks; she tries to work out how to fix this. There were other options, surely. Bigger towns, where nobody would know them.
