No More Waiting, She Chooses Love

Susie's eyes were a whirlpool of panic, and then she shook her head again, as if that had become her default response.

I was puzzled. "If he didn't touch you, didn't kiss you, where do you get the idea that he loves you?"

Susie blushed and looked down, saying, "Well, he... he almost kissed me once."

"Almost?" I pondered about Mack, "Was he drinking?"

Alcohol has a way of messing with men's heads, making them see past loves in the faces before them.

This time, Susie didn't shake her head but nodded slightly before confessing, "Last week, he was down in the dumps, drowning his sorrows. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me his favorite teacher had passed away, been gone for a hundred days. He said he missed her so much, and then... he looked at me, and he tried to kiss me..."

That's when it hit me that Judie had been gone from this world for a hundred days.

Mack's beloved teacher was Judie, and in that moment, he must have seen her in Susie.

Considering Judie, a girl who looked a bit like me, made my heart heavy. Looking at Susie, who bore no resemblance to Judie, I wondered how Mack could mistake her for Judie.

It must have been the alcohol.

push him away, or did

blush on Susie's face, "He stopped himself,

likes you because of that?" I couldn't help feeling that Susie's idea of romance was a

really nice to me, everyone at the library thinks we're dating. They even tease us, and he never corrects them,"

sitting across from me or talking to me, he gets upset. Clearly, he's jealous," Susie listed the ways Mack

knew she was telling the truth. Anyone in

some explaining to do,

mentioned he brought up his teacher, right? Didn't you ever wonder why he's so hung up on

you suggesting he was in love with

to agree

"That

would his teacher have to be

be in love with

Content

girl, still stuck in the notion that

paused, weighing whether to lay out the truth for her now or let her

Mack's professor was a young, beautiful woman?" Susie grasped