Page 12 of Irish Betrayal

I think I might skip camp next summer. I know everything they teach anyway. Maybe mom and dad would let me go just to spend time with my friends.

I’ll wait to ask for a few months. I don’t want them to think I’m unthankful for the opportunity.

There were a few new kids in the program this year. They were really great, but he, Peter, thought it best that I didn’t befriend them.

He said they would eventually be my competition. I don’t know how. Max’s interests are in bioengineering, and LeAnne is focused on art. To me, if I can’t get in on my own merits, I don’t deserve it.

I made the mistake of telling him that I have a crush on someone.

I know I’m weird for confiding in an adult like that, and one I only see a few weeks out of the year, but HE ASKED! And despite how old he is, he really cares about what I say.

He also texts me. A lot.

He sends me pictures of amazing plants and root rot and…his body. He says I’ll never reach the academic level I dream of if I focus only on plant systems.

He said I should know about the human body too.

When he asked me to send him a few of me…I did. It made me feel kind of sick. I don’t think I know my mom and dad wouldn’t like it, but he says all the most brilliant people in history have more than one area of interest.

Peter is willing to help me understand the human body and its reactions to certain stimuli.

I’m glad he has me delete all the messages and pictures because sometimes I’ll look at some of his pictures more than once, and I think maybe that isn’t good.

I don’t know, but I won’t have to worry about it again if I'm brave enough to tell my parents I don’t want to go there anymore.

Last night, I wondered if I should tell my friends. At least Mags and Gray, since they're my cousins.

But if my friends knew, they would want me to show them the pictures, and they don’t even know Peter.

Not at all. Not like me.

Maybe I feel strange about the whole thing because they don’t have an adult relationship like I do. They wouldn’t understand. I’m the youngest in the group, but this…thing between us is hard to understand.

I'd better leave anyone else out of it.

Plus, I may not see him again.

I just got a notification on my phone.

Peter sent a new picture.

six

STEM Summer Program

Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

Five years ago

BLAIR DAISY BARR

Dear Diary~

I’m home from Dublin, and I’m in love with two men. I’m not a kid anymore—I’m fourteen—and I know how I feel.

Peter is way too old for me, but love doesn’t care about age. That’s what Peter says, and he wouldn’t lie to me. Daniel is only five years older than me, but he never has his eyes on me unless we’re talking. Sure, he’s one of my best friends, but I’m not delusional. He’d never think of me like that—how I think about him.

I think Peter does think about me like that. He’s never outright told me he wants to be my boyfriend when I eventually go to college at Trinity – when I’m seventeen – but he hasn’t said he wouldn’t be either. He’s probably waiting for me to say.