Until It Clicks

Part Four

Annabelle was bored. So when her three best friends weren't answering their phones, she turned to her next best friend, John Green.

She cracked open the closest book to her, let it fall open, and held it close to her, remembering that Charlie's beautiful brown eyes had graced every page of the book before, when she had lent it to him. She liked to think of it as their book.

Flipping it open, she noticed a faint pencil mark under the letter "I". She shrugged it off and continued to read. To her surprise, the next underlined word was "love". Her heart thumped to the tune of a heavy metal rock song as she turned the page to find the next word underlined was "you".

She suddenly noticed the yellow post-it that was jammed into the center of the book. She assumed it was Charlie's bookmark. But then she realized that it actually had words written on it in his adorable chicken scratch. Her heart fluttered. Was this all real? His little note said,

"Blondie, I wish you paid more attention to my favorite books, because they have all the words I'm too afraid to say to you. Here are a few: I love you."