"Then you're the trustworthy ones," Iris said, looking into Cole's face and deciding that, after John's rather deliberate look in her direction, that he must be trustworthy, along with Peter. She gave the latter a slightly sympathetic look. He was so sweet, and very trusting, along with trustworthy. "It's not you. It's me. And I guess... and I guess John." She didn't look at him.
"It can be anything, just a secret?" Iris licked her lips and dropped her eyes down to the box in Cole's hands. Moving a step or two away from Peter, just so that he wouldn't have to react by doing the same if he did not like what she said, she looked up at the light. "When... when I was young, young and stupid, I was in London, going to school. I made some young and stupid friends." Humorless smile. "There was a professor there... he was tough on evaluations, and nobody liked him, so we played a trick on him. It's a con, actually, and it has a name, but I at the time I didn't know that, and I just went along." She shrugged. "Anyway, we made it look like he had an affair with me. They were just going to blackmail him for the grades, but... well, it got out, and then they sacked him. His wife left him, and he moved... I'm not sure what happened after that. I didn't mean to ruin his life but I think that's what happened. I guess I got used to it after that."
She stopped talking, and looked at the box in Cole's hands again. It clicked open, as if on a spring. She sighed.