Contrary to what we want to believe, all teenagers lie to their parents.
Compared to what other teenagers were lying about, what I was lying about was relatively harmless. Some teenagers lie about where they are, what they're doing, whether or not they're fucking or drinking or doing drugs or shoplifting or cheating in school. Me? I lied because I didn't want my parents to find out that I was a social failure who spent all their time on the internet writing about the romances of dead artists. Were the lies morally ambiguous? Yes. Were the lies sophisticated? Yes. However, most lies rest somewhere between self-preservation and the preservation of the feelings of other people, and these are no exception. At this particular time in history, many schemes crafted by teenagers seem technologically sophisticated because there existed a large skills gap between those who grew up with technology and those who had to adapt to it in adulthood.
When Moricz first showed up, he seemed like a godsend. Here was this mysterious man who wrote flowery, romantic stories about the exact same historical figures and time period that I did. This was enough to pique my interest, but the gears of this saga were truly set in motion when he wrote something for me, a person whose peers never bothered to give the time of day, a person whose single desperate wish was to fall in love and be loved in return. To a fifteen year old girl surrounded primarily by the unserious louches we know teenage boys to be, Moricz seemed to be in a league of his own. I suppose that this should have aroused suspicions, but nothing quells such inquiries like the potent combination of the will to believe, self-importance, and youthful infatuation.