Strenuous Love

Chapter 8

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:6

I have been staring at John 14:6 from my bible for the past twenty minutes waiting on Jace to show up.  I was the only one here besides the librarian Miss Morgan. She was a young lively woman who reminded me of a fairy. She was short, wore cute fun dresses, always did her hair in a unique way, and knew how to brighten anyways day. Even mine. 

She came up to my table and pulled something out of her dress pocket. It was a dove chocolate.

I looked at the candy then back at her. 

Her blue eyes were as light as the sky on a clear day.  Today she was wearing a green dress with patterns of books spines on them. For it totally worked. Her light blond hair was a long braid in the back. If she would have flowers covering the back of her hair I would almost mistake her for Rapunzel from tangled. The resemble was that good. Except the eyes of course and Rapunzel didn't stay a blonde forever. 

"You look sad," was all she said as she took a seat in the chair next to me.

She wasn't entirely wrong. I was a little sad.

"How do you know," I asked softly unwrapping the chocolate. After the first bite I sighed on contact. It was my favorite kind. It was rich, dark, and it took a while for it to melt into your mouth. 

Miss Morgan shrugged. " I read books and I know things," was her short witty reply.

That made me smile. Miss Morgan was never one to brag but she was intelligent. She graduated Sum Cude Lade from Columbia College with a degree in English Lit. She then went on and got her Master in Library Science from The University of Illinois in Champagne Urbana. She had a chance for so much more than Columbia, Missouri. I wonder why she came back? Maybe I'll ask her that sometime. 

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Not really. But then again, she did know things so she could probably figure it out. 

"I'm not a mind reader dear," she answered my unvoiced thought, " Knowing what a person is thinking and knowing knowledge in general is two different things." 

I wasn't sure. The bible didn't say anything like that. 

She waited for me as if I was going to spill my life story to her. I didn't want to talk about it. It was embarrassing enough to tell Miss Amber. 

"I-I-I..."

"Your still here," a voice called out, " Thank God lets get this shit over with."

A heavy thud sounded on the table. Jace tossed his backpack on the table and took the seat next to me. 

Where has he been? His hair was rumpled windblown almost. I took one whiff at the cigarette stench and I realized I didn't want to know. I agree with him. Lets get it over with. But once its over what will I do then?

Miss Morgan cleared her throat and stood up smoothing the wrinkles in her dress.

" I will leave you to it. And I will be locking up as soon as I put these books away."

She motioned to the cart full of stuff to go back on the shelf. From the looks of it I bet it would give us about a half an hour.

Perfect.

I gave her a thumbs up and she walked away rolling the cart with her.

I looked over at Jace and just took a good minute to study him. My dad would have one word for him. Sinner.