I DIDN’T SLEEP AT all that night—or the next. How could I, when all I could hear were my words replaying like a scratched record in my head and all I could see was Eric’s hurt face just staring at me from the front seat of his car?
Exhausted, I slowly move through my Monday morning routine, washing my face, pulling on my thermal underwear. I get a pang in my heart remembering Eric’s response that night in the library when I told him I was wearing it: Are you trying to seduce me? And I wonder how many more moments I’ll have to go through like this; how many memories I’ve created of him; how completely he’s invaded my life in such a short time.
I contemplate calling in sick to work, but I need the distraction.
The day is long and feels as though the world is conspiring to remind me of all that has gone wrong. The pillow golfer, Michael, who has never said four words to me, suddenly wants to know where Louise is. “She on some kind of sabbatical? I haven’t seen her for a while,” he says. I notice that standing up, instead of hunched over a computer screen, he’s not unattractive. If you passed him on the street, you’d have no idea he spends his entire day in the library sitting on a pillow.
“Fired,” I reply. “City council cut funding.” He stares at me, his brown eyes searching mine, and I’m convinced he’s wondering what everyone else is: why it wasn’t me.
“Well that’s a bummer,” he says. I make a noncommittal sound and look back down at the books I’m sorting, hoping he’ll take the hint.
“Ah, that’s a great book,” he says, pointing to the one in my right hand. I look down at it. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I’ve never read it.
“Really?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at him, surprised that he reads. Surprised that he does anything but play that stupid golf computer game.
“Really,” he says, a sadness in his eyes. “It was my dad’s favorite.” I look down at it again, and when I look back up, he’s gone.
At four thirty, the door opens and out of the corner of my eye I see Aja. I turn toward him, but realize it’s just a boy, same small frame, but with dull brown curly hair instead of Aja’s shiny jet black. And that’s what almost breaks me. I was so mad at Eric, so eager to disentangle him from my life, I wasn’t thinking about Aja. What must he think of me? I almost call Eric, tell him it’s fine for Aja to still come to the library, but in the end, I can’t bring myself to do it. As much as I’ll miss Aja, it’s better this way. A clean break.
But if that’s really true, I can’t explain why, for the next week, every time the door opens, my heart quickens in my chest, thumping with hope that it’s one of them coming in. Eric or Aja.
By the end of January, I’ve finally given up, resigned myself to the fact that it’s really over—whatever it was—and I finally stop watching the door, stop hoping that Eric will burst in like some kind of Hollywood paramour.
And that’s when he comes in.
Not Eric.
But Donovan.
I blink three times when I see him, trying to make sense of him in this space, of him in a suit, of him at all. Donovan only exists to me as a boy in a courtyard, wearing an obnoxious sideways trucker hat and a pair of lips that gave me my first and only kiss, an arrogant teen who nearly killed me, all for a bet.
Time slows as he walks toward me, and I wonder in quick succession first if he’ll recognize me, and then if I have time to run off to the back room and hide. A plan that might work if only my feet would just move.
“Jubilee,” he says, answering my first question in his maple-syrup voice. It’s deeper, but I’d recognize it anywhere. He stops in front of the desk, and I feel his eyes crawling from the top of my head down to the gloves on my hands. It takes every ounce of willpower to remain still and unbothered by his inspection.
“Madison told me you were working here,” he says, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I had to come see it for myself. Sorry it took me so long to stop by.”
Only Donovan would think that after all this time, I was waiting to see him, that his presence is desired by everyone.
“You look good,” he says, and the remark catches me off guard, especially because he’s dropped the theatrics. It’s not slick and slimy, the way he says it, although remembering what Madison said about his extracurricular activities, I’m sure he’s got complimenting women down to a science.
“Thank you,” I say, although I realize with great relief that even though the heart fluttering in my throat suggests otherwise, I don’t care what he thinks. Not anymore.
I want to return the compliment, but really, he looks the same. Just an older, more filled-out version of the boy in the courtyard. And his pants are properly fitted to his waist, rather than slung low to advertise the Hollister logo on the boxers he wore in high school.
“Anyway, I won’t keep you. Just wanted to say I’m so glad she could do all this for you,” he says.
“Who?” I ask, wondering if I’ve missed part of the conversation we’re apparently having.
“Madison,” he says.
Oh, right. I guess he knows she helped me get the job.
“God, for years, she felt so guilty.”
I tilt my head, now sure I’ve missed something. “Wait—what are you talking about?”
“The bet,” he says, as if that clarifies everything. “You know, how it was all her idea. Man, when she heard you had actually died—I don’t know who started that crazy rumor— I thought she was going to lose it.” He laughs. “Anyway, that was all so long ago. Water under the bridge, right?”
My body goes cold. Madison? That doesn’t even make sense—Donovan was her boyfriend. Why would she want him to kiss me? But then, other things start to click into place. Like how eager she was to help me when I ran into her at the gas station. And how easily I got this job, when Louise said it had been sitting open for four months—wait, Louise.
My eyes jerk up to Donovan. “Why did Louise get fired?”
“Who’s Louise?”
“She was a librarian here. They fired her a few weeks ago.”
“Oh. Right. That might technically be my fault. I didn’t know her name, though. Madison called me all in a tizzy saying the funds were low and the director was going to fire you, but she couldn’t let that happen, that you really needed the job. The bank donates ten grand to the library foundation every year, so I just made a call and said if you got fired, we would be withholding the check. I wasn’t sure if it would work—I mean, ten Gs isn’t that much money, you know? But it did.” He shrugs. “Was the least I could do.”
I stare at him, unable to conceal my shock. “You . . . are really . . . something,” I say slowly.
“Well, thank you.” He flashes a smile and tugs on his jacket lapel.
“I mean Madison said you were an asshole, but you really, really are.”