Chapter Fourteen
Jesse
Before
Four days had passed since I ended up at the library at Saint Michael’s College. Time wasn’t just moving, it was slipping away. And following the meeting with my father’s doctor, I just wasn’t able to get a grasp on everything that was happening. Hours became blurry. I was missing meetings and reports and forgetting to answer questions.
I didn’t care.
I was in this robotic pattern, up long before the sun rose, awake and dazed when I should have been sleeping.
I didn’t know how to fix this feeling. How to go back to the way things were before. How to try to find some normal again. I just knew after several days of battling these emotions, I couldn’t see another email come in, adding to the thousands that were already there. I couldn’t send another call to my voicemail, knowing I probably wouldn’t phone them back.
I had to get out of here.
I had to make this feeling go away.
I left my desk and slid into the driver’s seat of my car. When I pulled onto the street, I didn’t head in the direction of home. Home didn’t make me feel any better. I was as unsettled there as I was at work.
So, I drove.
The next thing I knew I was pulling into the parking lot of Saint Michael’s College, in a spot where I could see all three buildings with the library in the middle.
“Good afternoon,” I heard someone say as I walked through the door.
There were two voices the last time I was here—a man when I arrived and a woman when I left. Although I wasn’t confident, I had a feeling they would sound familiar if I heard them again.
One thing I knew for sure was the woman who had just greeted me wasn’t either of them.
“Hi,” I replied to her, and then I made my way toward the back of the library.
I didn’t have a destination. I couldn’t recall the layout or the area where I had wandered before or the chair I had sat in. There was just something pulling me deeper into the stacks. Maybe it was the smell of books that I loved so much. Maybe I just wanted to be farther away from the door. Maybe it was a feeling that was driving me.
I didn’t know.
But I kept on walking past the shelves, my eyes falling onto titles, the tips of my fingers dragging across spines the same way they did at home. I didn’t stop until a book caught my attention and I held the small, extremely old hardcover against my palm.
I hadn’t read this one. I’d been meaning to for years. It was part of my father’s collection and he’d been recommending it for a while.
I used to spend so much time in my parents’ library when my father was well. Now, the only time he left his bedroom was to go to the hospital, which meant when I was at their house, I stayed at his bedside.
So many books had gone unread since he became sick. My time went to him. And when I climbed in bed at night, normally reading until my eyes closed, the desire to pick up a book was gone.
Maybe one day I would read again.
As I really started to focus on that thought, I heard, “It’s right over here,” from what sounded like a woman several aisles behind me. Her voice was so familiar. “It’s no problem at all,” she added. The closer she got, the more I recognized her. “It should be … yes, here it is.” She stood at the mouth of the aisle, looking at a book on one of the shelves. “Happy reading,” she said, giving it to the woman who stood beside her.
She had a young voice.
She was young.
When she started to walk away, I said, “Excuse me,” causing her to glance in my direction. I waved her over and she made her way down my aisle.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked.
Her name tag said Bay. It was unique and I wondered what the story was behind it. Every name had a story, even mine.
“This is going to sound silly,” I began. “But I was here the other night and …” I paused, trying to think of the right way to word this.
“And I told you to have a good evening when you were walking out.”
“Yes.” I backed up until I felt the shelf press into my shoulders and another one at my waist. “That was me. I …” I lost my train of thought, unsure where I was even going with this.
Or why I had come here.
Or what I was doing in this aisle right now.
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
I knew I was breathing, but I couldn’t feel myself suck in any air. I couldn’t feel anything. It was as though I were standing here without my mask and this girl was seeing me.
Really seeing me.
“Yes,” I answered. “I think I’m okay.”
“No …” She was smiling, shaking her head. “I don’t mean are you okay right now, I mean the other night when you were leaving the library. Whatever was bothering you, I hope it all worked out.” She was standing close, the side of her body leaning into the same shelves as me.
“How did you know something was wrong?”
The words had come right out, but I didn’t regret them.
“It was the expression on your face.” Her stare shifted from my right eye to my left. “It’s hard to explain, but it’s one of those looks when you see it, it really hits you.”
I understood.