A woman sits in a café, sipping her coffee and reading a copy of Pride and Prejudice. But her eyes aren’t exactly reading, they’re barely noticing a single word because she keeps glancing upwards to glimpse a young man across the room intensely staring at his laptop’s screen.

You’re being so stupid, Erin, she berated herself. This is so desperate.

It was desperate. For almost a year she had been coming to this café for a cup of coffee and half a sandwich after one o’clock and every day she saw this same young man. A preppy college student, she guessed, wearing his black rimmed glasses, khakis, and wool sweater, and she always wanted him to look her way. He was a bit young for her, no older than twenty most likely, but she was desperate, desperately hopeful.

She hadn’t had any kind of relationship since she was  . . . his age, and it was sad. She was so sad, so lonely. She had a great job, in charge of a small bank branch, she had worked her way up. That job made it possible for her to take almost an hour for lunch to come to this little café and drool like a puppy over this college boy. There was a decade between them, a hopeless lost cause.

Never. It would never happen!

She had bought a copy of Pride and Prejudice because he had been reading his own the day before. Something inside made her think he might notice and stop by to comment.

“Hey, I’m reading that myself.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, I’m a sucker for romances.”

Giggle. Brush her hair back. “Me too.”

He swallows, glances away as he contemplates leaving but turns back with fresh resolve. “What do you think of it?”

“It’s good. The movie doesn’t do it justice.”

“I agree with you one hundred percent.”

“I’m ___”

Giggle. “I’m Erin. Nice to meet you, ___”

But he didn’t look up. That blank would remain empty. That hole in her heart would remain likewise. A face with no name. Half a heart with no partner. Half a sandwich she barely nibbled at. Half a cup of coffee. A book opened half way through that she wasn’t reading. A life, half lived, that was hers. She was only half a person, incomplete and lonely.

Pathetic. Only a miracle would ever bring you love.