“I know.” Her friend’s voice softened with guilt. “I saw you on caller ID.”
“So you have been avoiding me.”
“Not really.”
Meredith waited.
“Okay, maybe a little, but not entirely. I’ve had one hell of a week. Almost lost a patient last night—a little girl with a simple adenoid surgery who reacted to the anesthetic.”
“Oh, Suze, I’m so sorry.” And then, after a moment, “She’s okay, though, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But you aren’t.”
“I just need a little time to trust myself again,” Susan said. “It scares me how close I came to saying yes when Mark asked me to marry him, simply because it was safe.”
Meredith dropped down on her white quilt. “I thought you loved him.”
“I think I do.” Susan sounded surprised. “Mark’s a wonderful guy. I’m just not in love with him.”
She lay back on the bed, staring at the pattern of swirls on the ceiling. “Susan Gardner, you aren’t going to convince me the man didn’t turn you on.”
“I’m not even going to try. How could he not? He’s gorgeous.”
Right. Any woman would notice that. “So?”
“Sexual attraction is physical,” Susan said slowly. “For me, it doesn’t last much past the first kiss or two. To be in love, there has to be that added spark, you know? The feeling that lasts after the orgasm is over, making the moment, the lovemaking, go on and on and on.”
“The kind that makes your heart leap every time the person walks in the room, even after you’ve been married for fifty years,” Meredith said. It was a theory that her head “knew,” but her heart had never “felt.”
The only time her heart had leapt at the sight of another person had been when Mark Shepherd had shown up in her classroom to yell at her—and love had been the furthest thing from her mind.
“It’s what you felt with Bud, huh?”
“Yep.”
“You’re sure you just didn’t give Mark—and yourself—enough time?”
“No.” Susan’s reply was so baldly honest Meredith’s eyes teared over.
“Then call him.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Come on, tune in. Let me feel her. Meredith was experiencing spurts of emotion from Susan, but couldn’t get the calm feeling long enough to distinguish them clearly from her own—or to decipher them.
“Because. It’s not right.”
“Why not? He loved you, Suze. He asked you to marry him. I’m sure he’d love to have you call him back and say you’ve changed your mind. He’s not the type to hold grudges or…”
“I haven’t changed my mind.”
“Suze, if this is fear, I’m going to come over there and throttle you.”
The long silence that followed almost had her hanging up and getting her keys.
“He’s not in love with me.”