Hudson’s pale skin turns bright pink, which makes me think this customer at the shoe store was a whole lot more than just a customer, but for whatever reason, he doesn’t want to admit it. Of course, that makes me wonder even more who she was. And if he had fallen for her the way I’m starting to fall for him.
“Does she go to our school?” I ask.
For a moment, he looks like he’s not sure how to answer the question. “She used to,” he finally says.
Maybe she was a year ahead of us. I would have known if he was dating someone in our own class.
“Anyway,” he says, “she…uh…she was having a hard time for a while and was pretty messed up, but she’s doing a lot better now. I’ve known her for a while, and she seems happy for the first time ever, so that’s nice, you know? I want her to be happy. She deserves it.”
Definitely a girlfriend—I can see it all over his face. I wonder if this is the same girlfriend he had at the beginning of the year, but I’m afraid to ask. Anyway, it’s none of my business. He’s not with her anymore.
We both get out of the car, and Hudson reaches for my hand. He laces his fingers into mine, and when he smiles at me, I smile back. As we walk to the diner together, I decide that I am going to get a vanilla milkshake with a lot of whipped cream and a cherry on top, because I deserve a treat.
THE END
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Acknowledgments
When I was writing The Teacher, I said to my teenager, “Do you think you could write me a poem that a teenager would think is really deep, but it’s actually painfully bad?”
In response, she sat down beside me, snatched the laptop from my lap, and said, “Give me two minutes.” I then watched her create the greatest bad poem I had ever seen. I was blown away. “It’s so perfect,” I told her before I obviously changed a bunch of things.
With the publication of The Teacher on the horizon, I reminded her of that poem she wrote for me. I told her how much I loved it, and that I was going to give her credit for the poem in the acknowledgments. And she said, “Ugh, please don’t.”
Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t have told that story.
Well, she’s not going to read this book anyway because she would rather die. Someday when she’s all grown up, she’ll have this to look back on and feel mildly embarrassed and/or nostalgic.
Thank you also to Jenna Jankowski （who Hudson absolutely was not named after, but it just proves some things are truly kismet） for your amazing feedback and help with shaping this book into the story it became, as well as to the entire Sourcebooks team for an incredible job. Thank you to my mother, who always is the first one to read my books and never, ever understands the twist at the ending. Thank you to my beta readers, Pam, Kate, and Emily. Thank you to Daniel and Val for excellent proofreading. And a huge thank you to my agent, Christina Hogrebe, and the JRA team for your support!
Last but definitely not least, thank you thank you thank you to all my readers! I am genuinely just so grateful to all the readers out there who have supported me on my journey. I hope my books have brought you even a tiny bit as much joy as it has given me to see so many people reading them!
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Afterword
Did you enjoy reading The Teacher?
If so, please consider leaving a review on Amazon! Also, check out my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and get updates on my books: http://www.freidamcfadden.com/
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And now please enjoy a short excerpt of my book, Never Lie…
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Never Lie
We’re hopelessly lost and my husband won’t admit it.
I can’t say this is atypical behavior for Ethan. We’ve been married for six months—still newlyweds—and ninety percent of the time, he’s the perfect husband. He knows all the most romantic restaurants in town, he still surprises me with flowers, and when he asks me about my day, he actually listens to my answer and asks appropriate follow-up questions.
But the other ten percent of the time, he is so stubborn, I could scream.
“You missed the turn for Cedar Lane,” I tell him. “We passed it like half a mile down the road.”
“No.” A scary-looking vein bulges in Ethan’s neck. “It’s up ahead. We didn’t pass it.”