“So about the girl you’ve been seeing…” Phil began.

Derrick kept his voice neutral. “What about her?”

“I got some some bad news.”

“I kinda figured by the way you started the conversation. Out with it.”

“She’s sixteen.”

“What? No. No, I met her at college. She can’t be sixteen.” Derrick responded in disbelief and anger but in his head some of things she had said in passing were slowly falling into place. He felt sick.

“Hey thanks to homeschooling, more kids are going to college earlier.”

“Don’t call her a kid. She’s smart, funny, supportive-”

Phil cut him off. “Why not? It’s better to speak plainly about things like this. You’re twenty-five, you gotta drop her or people with think you are a pedophile- and that shit sticks with you for life. Remember Jailbait Jerry? I guarantee that his tombstone is going to have that on there somewhere.”

“But I love her!”

Phil stopped and looked at Derrick’s face. It was an open wound, red, raw, and almost as painful to observe as it was to have.

“Well, shit.”