Shallow River

Thanks for your permission, asshole.

Surely, I just made the strain in my hip worse with how fast I just rushed out of that classroom, but I find it worth it if it means escaping the professor’s probing gaze.

That was my last class of the week. Amelia’s been asking to grab coffee, but I don’t dare face her right now. She knows me too well and would sniff out my predicament in a heartbeat.

But I don’t want to go home, either. Ryan’s not home yet—or at least he shouldn’t be—but the empty house would just make me feel worse.

I’m standing in the quickly emptying parking lot when I feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I know who’s standing behind me before he even utters a word. Why the hell is he following me? I chalked the first time up to a weird fluke, but now it’s obvious he’s seeking me out. Our first interaction, he was cold and distant. It just doesn’t make sense.

“Why are you following me?” I ask, not bothering to turn around.

“Why are you standing in the middle of a parking lot?” he counters, his deep voice sliding over my battered nerve-endings.

My mental state is fragile today. Normally, I can roll with Ryan’s punches—literally—but I’m just so disappointed in myself.

“Not today, Mako,” I murmur. I walk forward—away from him. Now more than ever, I try to walk without the limp. He’d never let it go if he saw. He follows immediately. I already knew he would, but it makes me angry anyway. I whip around, gritting my teeth against the pain and glare at him. “Stop following me.”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, his concerned gaze studies me much like Professor Trumbling’s just did.

“I don’t need this,” I mutter, turning back around. A gentle hand stops me. I flinch away from his touch, not liking how the wrong kind of shivers race up my spine. The kind of shivers Ryan’s supposed to make me feel. It makes my skin crawl.

“What did he do?”

“What makes you think he did anything?” I snap.

Mako doesn’t answer right away. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, as if he needs to physically restrain them from doing something. Like from touching me.

“Then who did?” he asks softly. I’m not fooled. Dark fury is on the precipice of his voice, threatening to overtake his gentleness. It’s like a tidal wave crashing into a toy boat.

I shake my head, and once again, turn to walk away. He lets me this time, but he still follows.

Damn it.

I painstakingly make my way out of campus and down the busy street. I’ll come back for my car later. All I need right now is to walk off the restless energy polluting my body.

I’m sweating in a matter of minutes, but it’s good to focus on something else aside from my hip.

We walk in silence. Five minutes pass. And then ten. I take back roads, avoiding any areas Ryan could possibly drive by on. The entire walk, I replay last night in my head, going over every painstaking detail and obsessing over what I could’ve said or done differently. There’s so many things I wish I could change, starting from wearing something more conservative to not arguing with him so much when he said something I didn’t like. I always have to argue with everything he says instead of just picking my battles. Not everything is worth fighting over.

Eventually, I make my way up a small hill and towards an abandoned library. Graffiti taints the brick walls, vulgar words and pictures colored across the surface. The door is hanging off the hinges. I push it away slightly and walk through the opening.

The library may be creepy to most, but it’s home to me.

I spent a lot of time here when I was younger and was able to escape Shallow Hill. It closed a few years ago, and it took my heart with it. I’ve never been able to let it go, even as mongrels slowly started destroying it.

Mako dutifully follows me. For some unknown reason, he’s intent on stalking me, and I’m too exhausted to fight it right now.

“Where are we?” His voice shatters the fragile film of silence that blanketed over us. Ryan doesn’t even know about this place. It makes me itchy that Mako is witnessing such an intimate part of my life. Truthfully, I hadn’t even realized this is where I was heading until I arrived. My body seemed to know where to go naturally—a place that soothes something inside of me that nothing else can.

“Home,” I answer shortly.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t question me further. Just follows in silence as I make my way down the empty rows where books once slept. I run my fingertips across the dusty surfaces, trailing wavy lines across the shelves and coating my fingers with a thick film of dust. If I close my eyes, I can feel the phantom binders brushing across my fingertips.

And if I keep them closed, I can remember the feel of opening a book and watch the pages awaken from its slumber and show me their story. I’d get so lost in them when I was younger, I’d stay long after the library closed.

The librarian, and my mentor growing up, Camilla, would let me stay for as long as she could before she had to get home to her own family. She never asked, and I never told, but I think she knew I had a bad homelife. Which is why I think she worked so hard to give me something good to hold onto. Every day, I’d walk into enough snacks to keep my belly full for the rest of the night. Sometimes she’d even buy me a new outfit and shoes when I’d start growing out of my clothes. Barbie never noticed long enough to question where I got them from.

Camilla is the one who taught me about periods and bought me my first pads. She taught me about sex and the reproductive system. I’ll never forget that day—learning that sex is supposed to be between two people who respect each other, and it’s supposed to be consensual. That was also when I realized that the men taking advantage of my body could get me pregnant. At only thirteen years old, I begged Camilla to help me get on birth control. She probed and asked if I was being touched, but I just lied and said the cramping from periods was awful—which it was.