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by Alicia Best

  She gives a sharp cry as her butt drops heavily back onto the faded grey carpet, a grim glower forming across her face.

  “What was that?” she snaps, pressing her palms into the carpet to leap to her feet. “You are so rude!”

  “Sorry,” I grumble, inspecting my hand like I expect to see a seared scar. “I lost my grip.”

  She scoffs loudly. “Yeah, and this table just spontaneously combusted.”

  “I didn’t mean to drop you,” I splutter, gesturing with my chin towards the front door of the library. “Why don’t you just see yourself out?”

  “Are you kicking me out of a public library?” Her wide, blue eyes glisten with fury. “You must have a dictionary around here somewhere so we can look up what public actually means.”

  It’s hard to believe anyone could be this angry over a fallen table. I was the one who was going to have to put it back together, and I wasn’t even that mad about it. It would give me something to do, at least.

  “No. I just don’t know why you’re here. All you did was wander around in circles, staring at your phone.”

  “I was having a very important conversation.” She ruffles up, chest puffing out. “If you must know, my ex is making my life a nightmare. He’s holding my cat hostage. Can you believe that? He doesn’t even like animals, and Noodle certainly doesn’t like him.” She’s rambling now, her hands falling to her hips, all of the irritation on her face melting away into a pensive, blank stare.

  “I miss that cutest face,” she ends with a heavy sigh.

  “The ex or the cat?”

  There’s that ire again. It leaps to her face like a candle freshly lit.

  “The cat,” she barks. “My ex… he’s nothing but a jerk. The world would be better without him in it.”

  The bitterness of her harsh words makes me grimace.

  “Don’t say that,” I murmur quietly. “It doesn’t matter how mad you are at the guy. Don’t say things like that.”

  She sighs again, kneeling down next to me as I jostle the scrawny leg of the table back into place. As I stand the table up again, she begins collecting the fallen books strewn on the ground. She was rambling on and on like crazy just a few minutes ago, but she’s quiet now.

  I’m not sure which is more unnerving.

  “You’re right.” She finally nods when the silence lasts a little longer than she can handle, her chin bobbing up and down as her straight blonde hair tumbles over the shoulder straps of her sundress. “I’m just so mad. I’ve never been this mad.”

  That’s hard to imagine, but I don’t say so. This girl reminds me of a yo-yo, flying emotionally back and forth. I say nothing, but she seems to read my mind.

  “What? You don’t think so?” she asks, nudging me with her elbow. “I’m serious!” Her mouth hangs open in disdain, eyebrows lifted towards her bangs.

  “You just seem a little…”

  “A little what?” she asks, nudging me again, voice going sharp.

  Extreme. Wild. Volatile.

  “Um. Fierce.” I silently thanked the universe for that annoying shampoo ad that played at least seven times an hour. Every other word in that commercial was ‘fierce this’ and ‘fierce that.’

  “Fierce?” she echoes, face growing cheery again. “Alright, Mr.…” she pauses to glance at my name tag, “Mr. Sullivan. I think I like you.”

  A wide grin parts her face, and before I can blink, more of that heat blooms over my neck, creeping across my chest and spreading up into my face.

  This is not good. Not good at all.

  Clearing my throat harshly, I turn a little so that I’m not looking into those deep eyes or at that pretty hair or how her dress clings to her beautiful body. It’s November; why is she wearing a dress like that anyway? Doesn’t she have a sweater to put on?

  “So,” she begins again, despite my obvious disinterest in the conversation. “Like I was saying, my ex is such a jerk. Our breakup was kind of messy, but I didn’t think he’d hold my cat hostage. Do you think I could pay someone to steal Noodle back for me?”

  I grunt, which apparently is permission for her to continue her little story. I’ve never heard anyone talk as much as this woman, especially to a stranger. I can’t decide if it’s irritating or endearing.

  I decide to go with irritating; it’s safer that way.

  “And then this guy has the nerve to issue a cease and desist letter to me! When I’m trying to just get my cat back!”

  “Crazy.” I sigh, unsure if I’m talking about the situation or the girl at my side.

  “It’s like I always seem to end up in these situations,” she muses, which doesn’t surprise me one bit.

  “Here,” she says, handing over the stack of books in her lap.

  When I bend to take them, she sucks in a little breath and snatches one from the bottom of the pile, almost knocking the rest out of my hands. I have to toss them down onto the wobbling table so that they don’t fall on her head.

  “Harry Potter!” She grins, waving the paperback at me. “I lost my copy. I’ll have to check this out and read it again. Isn’t it the best?”

  I fan out the other book titles on the table so that they would be shown off to the dozens of guests we don’t get in the library. I’ll be lucky if anyone but me and this woman ever sees the display.

  “You don’t think it’s the best?” Her voice is wounded, like she took the opinion personally.

  “Never read it.”

  She gasps again, louder this time, one hand flying up to her mouth.

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “It’s true.” I shrug my apologies, step back from the table and eye my work. Good enough.

  “Out of my third-grade class, all but two of the kids have read it, and they’re both doing it for their midterm book report.”

  “Are you telling me to read it and do a report?” I arch an eyebrow, glancing back at her.

  She purses her lips, then shakes her head with a huff. “I’m just saying that everyone has read it, Mr. Sullivan. You should too.”

  “I’m a busy guy.”

  She pouts, her plump lips looking so soft that I’m sure they would feel like velvet. My heart thuds against my ribs, half-longing and half-displeased. I have to end this conversation, and I have to do it now.

  I shoot a quick look towards the photo of Sarah, nodding as if I could hear her voice in my ear telling me not to be interested in the woman. There was a reason I hadn’t asked her name. I don’t want to know it. I want her to leave this library and never come back.

  “Will you check this out for me? I don’t have a library card here yet. I’ve only been back in town a year and—”

  “You can just have it.”

  She pauses mid-word, blinking at me curiously. “I’d still like a library card.”

  Yea, she would.

  My fists curl in exasperation, trying to come up with another way to get her out of here.

  “Machine’s broken.”

  She blinks again, eyes utterly unconvinced.

  “Alright.” She sticks out one hand towards me, the other one tucking Harry Potter under her arm. “I’ll come back in when it’s fixed. I’m Holly. Holly Burke. I work at the elementary school.”

  I don’t shake her hand. I can’t.

  I don’t want to touch her and feel again that electric sting that makes my heart leap in my chest. I close my eyes, willing myself to forget her name and her face, but when I open my eyes, Holly is still there, gazing at me with those beautiful eyes that lead my mind down dangerous paths.

  “It was nice to meet you,” she continues, unfazed, her hand dropping back to her side.

  She gives me a faint smile, one that is bemused and intrigued, and I realize I’ve done the opposite of what I’d wanted. I’ve made an impression.

  As she walks towards the library doors, I know with a heavy heart that this will not be the last I see of Holly Burke.

  I wish I was less happy about that.

 
; Chapter 4

  Holly

  “You know it’s November, right?” Charlotte asks, eyeing my dress while I shiver and clutch a cup of coffee.

  “Just because it’s getting cooler doesn’t mean you can’t be stylish,” I tell her, lifting the warm mug to my lips and breathing in the heavenly, bitter scent. “If you ever wore anything that wasn’t jeans and a t-shirt, you would get that.”

  Charlotte just shakes her head and grins, filling my mug up one more time with the fancy carafe she carries everywhere.

  “When do you get off?” I add, glancing around the quaint beachside restaurant.

  Waves rock lazily against the pier, stretching behind us into the chilly blue water, a few late sailboats dotting the bay. The sun will be going down soon, guiding them all back to the shore. When I was a kid, I used to stand with my toes dug down into the sand, hands shielding the sun off my face, and I would watch those boats and wonder just how far away they could take me.

  My red-haired friend spares a lazy glance at her watch, trying not to yawn.

  “None of that.” I pout. “I have a whole lot of ranting and wine drinking that I need from you tonight.”

  Charlotte laughs, sinking down into the seat beside me and setting the coffee pot onto the table. “I have another hour to go, but we’re slow today. Talk to me now; it was hard to piece together the whole story with your mess of texts. Come on, I’m listening.”

  She has a look around for anyone needing her and is satisfied she can be spared for a while. Taking the seat opposite, she waits for me to start.

  I screw my eyes up, wondering if she’s being sarcastic or not before sipping from my cup, keeping the warm liquid on my tongue for a long moment before swallowing. Its heat follows my throat, curling into my stomach. Instead of warming me up, it just makes the rest of my body feel even colder.

  “Well, you know all about how I dated Michael for a little while when I lived in the city.”

  Charlotte nods, a coy smile on her mouth. “Yes. The hunky politician. You called me from the bathroom on your first date about how he knew what all the French on the menu meant!”

  “I realized later that they had English footnotes at the bottom,” I mutter with a shake of my head, “but that was also the night I found that cat behind the Asian place. The one with the amazing pad thai?”

  “You sent me a new picture of him every day. Killed my data every time. You owe me like thirty bucks for that. What was his name?”

  I wave away her comment. What’s thirty bucks between friends?

  “Her name is Noodle. Because I spilled my takeout and she came running over.”

  “Weren’t you just at a French restaurant?”

  “Yes, but I couldn’t eat, Charlotte. It was a date!”

  Charlotte eases back in her chair and drums her fingers against the table. “If you say so.”

  “All I want is my cat back, but Michael is making this so much more difficult than it has to be. I don’t even care that he’s got the hots for his brand new floozy secretary now—”

  “Holly. Geez. Do you have to be that crass?”

  Again, I wave away her complaints. “It’s the truth! This whole thing is so unfair. I didn’t want to come back here. I never wanted to be that girl who comes back to her old hometown just to try and make ends meet.”

  Charlotte arches an eyebrow, resting her chin on her palm. “It’s not that bad here.” She frowns. “Your problem is that you have this mindset where if you’re not in the city, you’re not really living.”

  “You understand me so well,” I mumble while she rolls her eyes. I sink down into my chair and kick my legs out in front of me.

  A chilly wind blows, rustling the pleated hem of my skirt and making goosebumps prickle along the length of my legs.

  “He keeps saying he’ll get her to me next month and then the next month and then the next month. Now I can’t even call him to beg for her back.” I cross my ankles, staring glumly down at the white, printed mug resting on the table.

  The dock creaks under us, the lazy chatter of nearby tables drifting in the wind.

  “I know it’s not fair, but he’s not going to keep that cat forever.”

  “It’s been almost a year. I would’ve believed you eight months ago, but it feels like he’s punishing me now for what happened.”

  Charlotte cringes, shaking her head as I straighten and slap my hands against the table with a betrayed gasp. “Yes, it was pretty awful.”

  “You looked it up?” I hiss quietly, “You looked it up.”

  My eyes dart around the nearby tables to make sure no one was listening in. “You promised me you wouldn’t look up what happened between Michael and me!”

  She offers a sheepish smile, patting the back of one of my hands. “The more you kept begging me not to look at the gossip magazines, the more I couldn’t resist, Holly. It was all over the news… He’s running for a senator spot, and you know how the gossip mill works. That video though…”

  “There’s a video?” I ask, color draining from my face. “Are you serious?”

  She just grimaces, and my chin drops down against my chest in defeat.

  “I hope he loses,” I grumble, crossing my arms tightly in front of me, half in defensiveness and half because I was freezing.

  “He’s ahead by like twenty points in the polls—”

  “Charlotte!”

  She starts to climb up to her feet. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work, but you and I can still have wine later. Probably. Unless I’m super tired.” She yawns.

  “You’re about as helpful as the guy at the library.”

  “What library?”

  “The one by the elementary school. Oh!” I gasp, sitting up straight and slapping my forehead with my palm. “I finally remember what I was doing there. I was going to find a book for my students to read. I got distracted by that phone call. Man, now I’ll have to go back. Maybe the machine will at least be fixed.”

  “Is that place still there?” Charlotte laughs, finger pressing thoughtfully against her chin. “I hear like every other month that they’re going to turn it into some kind of office building.”

  “It is still there, but it looks like a ghost building, and the librarian really doesn’t help that image.”

  “Is he a total weirdo?” My best friend sits back down, her other customers forgotten. “Does he look like the Crypt Keeper?”

  “He’s younger than I expected. I don’t know his first name, but his last name is Sullivan.”

  The woman pauses, then groans, biting her lip. “Sullivan the librarian… Great, Holly, now I feel awful! That’s Everett you’re talking about!”

  “What? Is he like… specially employed or something?” I ask gravely, twitching one eyebrow up in curiosity.

  “No. Kind of. I don’t know. His wife was the librarian before him, back when that place was actually active. I used to take my little sister there for story time. I can’t even remember her name now…”

  “Oh, he’s married?”

  I can’t help the surprise lighting my face. The guy had been a total iceberg. I was shocked he’d so much as held hands with someone. It was pulling teeth to get him to say even a full sentence to me.

  “Was,” Charlotte corrects painfully, jaw clenching. “I don’t know the exact story, but she died a while back.”

  “Thanks, Charlotte,” I mumble ungratefully, remembering how awkwardly he’d acted and how I hadn’t been able to keep my mouth shut for more than two seconds at a time and how I’d knocked down his whole display. “Now I feel awful too.”

  At some point, I was going to have some apologizing to do.

  Just as soon as I worked up the courage to go back.

  Chapter 5

  Everett

  Sweetness bursts into my mouth as I bite into the apple, and I sigh in satisfaction.

  Apples had always been my favorite.

  The first year we were together, just kids at that point really, Sar
ah had made me an apple pie on my birthday. I can still remember how clammy my seventeen-year-old hands were when I twined her fingers between mine. We’d sat in the swinging chair on her porch, my heel nervously tapping on the faded wood, her cheeks rosy, our hands tightly clasped together, the smell of freshly-baked apples surrounding us like a haze.

  For seven more birthdays, that had been the tradition. Her, me, the porch swing, an apple pie. I’d thought, at the time, that the tradition would continue forever.

  I hadn’t had an apple pie since the last birthday before Sarah was taken from me.

  Everett, listen!

  Her voice whispers in the back of my mind, plucking at my brain, making my blood run like ice through my veins.

  Why hadn’t I just talked to her? Why had I walked out that door? I’d thought there would be time to work out our argument. I thought we would share a glass of wine that evening and the fight would just melt away.

  But Sarah had never come home, and I still don’t know how to listen.

  Her parents will never forgive me for that.

  It was strange now to think of how close we’d all been before the accident. My own mother and father had never been around much; they weren’t the most involved set of parents. My brother and I weren’t very close either, perhaps inclined to familial disinterest thanks to our upbringing. But I had cherished Sarah’s parents. They’d accepted me with open arms from practically the moment Sarah and I began dating. We sat around their large wooden table, passing bowls of salad and trays of meat, talking like we were a real family. They’d asked me about my interests, where I was going to college, how long my engineering degree would take to finish.

  I don’t know if they expected Sarah and I to last, but when I close my eyes, I can still see Patty sobbing into a handkerchief at our wedding, one hand pressed to her heart, a huge smile on her mouth.

  We’d had an apple cake to celebrate, and Patty had taken me in her arms and hugged me tightly that day. We were twenty-one. Still just kids at that point really, with only three years left together. Not that we knew that then.