The One

~Sage~“And I… I love you.” There. That was it. Those three words were a precursor to all that would come.I want a future with you. I want to share my life with you. I want to marry you.But she stood, silent still.And then, she raised one hand to his face, slowly and carefully, as she moved closer to him.While he held his breath, his eyes locked on her, she ran her fingers along his scar, along all the worst of the indentions and crevices that the burns had left, carefully, thoughtfully, close – so close – to him. And then, she smiled.There was no revulsion, no hesitance, just…Just love.And he felt it, along with a peace that he’d never felt, when she leaned up and brushed her lips against his scar, softly, again and again from the top of the angry mark and down, down, down until her lips were on his.“I love you, too,” she said.And he kissed her back.With a little half-strangled sob, Sage Jones blew her nose very loudly, then dabbed at her eyes, concluding after just a few touches that her makeup was ruined. Completely ruined, just like it always was every time she got into one of these books.Romance novels. They killed her. Passionate kisses, declarations of affection, and happily ever afters - she could never get enough of them.“You know, teachers don’t get paid overtime.”She startled at the voice, so much so that she dropped the tissue she’d been holding and very nearly dropped her ereader right along with it. No worries there, though, because if the device had left her hands she would have hit the floor with it, doing everything in her power to keep her most treasured possession - the keeper of all of those romance novels - from breaking on the cold linoleum floor of the tenth grade English room at Canyon High School.“Dad,” she managed with a gasp, raising her eyes up as Will Jones came into her classroom and sat down at one of the desks on the front row. “You scared me.”“I can see that,” he said, yawning and putting his hands behind his head as he stretched.He was worn out, not just from the daily stresses of teaching but from a long career in the profession, which was perfectly understandable. Will was just a year away from retirement after teaching high school English for the majority of Sage’s life and for the entirety of her own career. Mr. Will Jones and his daughter, Miss Sage Jones, teaching at the same high school, both in the English department, one with classes full of seniors, the other with sophomores.“I could tell you the same thing,” she said. “And I will. Teachers don’t get paid overtime, Dad. So why are you still here at -”She glanced at the clock on the back wall. 5:30.Oh, no. She was going to be late for her small group.“I know, I know,” Will said, even as Sage began gathering her things together. “I’m here this late because your mother has a meeting in the administrative offices. She’s organizing the continuing education course on immunizations and vaccinations.” Mr. Will Jones and his daughter, Miss Sage Jones, teaching at the same high school… and Nurse Cora Jones, school nurse turned supervisor over all of the nurses in the district. Then, there was Sage’s younger brother, Coach Luke Jones, history teacher and a jack of all trades when it came to the different sports at the high school.The school shouldn’t be called Canyon High School. Jones High School would be more fitting.Sage shook her head at the thought, putting her ereader into her bag, along with a huge stack of papers on the use of symbolism in The Great Gatsby and another formidable stack of vocabulary tests, all of which she’d need to grade over the weekend. It was a lot of work that would end up taking nearly every free minute that she had. If she had a family of her own, it would take some logistical acrobatics to fit everything around the schedule of children, of a husband…But Sage didn’t have a family. Didn’t even have a boyfriend.“Have you been crying?” Will asked, taking a better look at Sage as she made her way around her desk and towards him, her bag over her shoulder, ready to go now.“A little,” she confessed, unable to keep from smiling. “It was this book I was reading.”She very nearly told him about the book, about the story, and about how she’d lost herself in it, ready to give him all the details and start a long discussion about the plot, the characters, and the romance.But she caught herself, intuitively knowing that no one was as into these books as she was, especially not her father.“It was really good,” she said, the words leaving her lips before she could craft a more eloquent assessment, one that matched the content that she’d just inhaled and digested as time had gotten away from her.“If a really good book makes you cry like that,” Will said, getting up from the desk with an exaggerated grunt, stretching his back as he did so, “I would hate to see how choked up you get over a really bad book.”“You know what I mean,” she said, smiling at this. “It was just so easy to get lost in it, to forget the world around me, to feel like…”Like the totally romantic and swoon worthy story was her life, that someone loved her as passionately as this hero had loved the heroine.It was easy to get lost in it all, to want more than what she had.“I just like reading,” she said weakly, unable to vocalize anything further than this.“I think you were born to do what you’re doing,” Will said, smiling right back at her. “Loving books, teaching books, sharing books, all with this next generation.”“And the one after that, likely,” she said, thinking that it was true.She loved teaching English, loved leading students