I could hear the floorboards above my head creaking and groaning as people walked amongst the stacks. Customers lounged on the overstuffed chairs in the corners, reading a book and drinking their overpriced lattes. They looked deep in thought, a finger to their chin as though a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time made them that much smarter than the rest of us.
I didn’t judge. I was a keen observer of people. I knew that the guy in the corner with his hipster beard and lip ring yelled at his girlfriend when she didn’t text him back right away. He was a condescending bully that hid it under pseudo-intelligence.
I knew that the woman trying to be discreet as she read the sex scenes in the erotica books stepped out on her husband. She met an older man upstairs in a private reading room three times a week.
These random people with their random lives hid nothing from a woman like me. Bloated on secrets. Bingeing on lies.
They were all the same.
I pulled out my notebook with the clean, green cover. Pristine as the day I had bought it. I paused briefly, reading the stories scribbled on the pages.
Her name is Fiona. She lives her life on the edge of a blade. Running, running, running. From the people who want to keep her. To trap her. She searches for things she will never have.
I quickly turned the page. Those stories had their time and place. The Lion and the Rose Bookshop was not it.
But there were other words that I could write. Words that were safe out in the open.
Wings flutter madly,
Up, up, up.
Delicate legs tangled,
Taste and touch divine.
Happy.
Found.
Home.
One day is all he’s given.
Twisted and writhing,
It’s over.
Decimated and dying—
It’s gone.
Ruined before it had the chance,
To live.
“Are you a writer?” I glanced up, annoyed at the intrusion.
I didn’t bother to answer.
Words were precious. This man with dyed black hair and trendy glasses didn’t deserve them.
I noticed that he wore his carefully scuffed Converse sneakers untied and that bothered me.
You couldn’t trust a person who couldn’t make the commitment to tie their shoes before they left the house.
“I’m Trevor,” he said, and I shrugged, uninterested.
Go away…
He had no purpose for me. I had found it in a pair of dancing green eyes.
I closed my notebook, smoothing my hand down the green cover, and slid it under the counter, out of sight. Away from ugly blue eyes that shouldn’t be looking at me at all.
I stared back at Trevor, giving him nothing.
Nothing…
I made him uncomfortable. I knew the look on his face well. His flirty smirk disappeared and was soon replaced with confused embarrassment.
“What’s wrong with you? Can’t you speak?” he asked a little angrily.
I crossed my arms over the counter and leaned in a fraction. I could smile but I didn’t. I wouldn’t give him that.
Smile, Layna, then people will love you.
Trevor relaxed a bit. I lulled him with my body language. My eyes that met his. I angled towards him, tilting my head. Long hair brushing his hand. His pupils dilated. His breathing became shallow.
He lusted.
He wanted.
It was so easy to deceive, to pretend, to lie, behind the perfect mask of a smile. The slight movement of a hand. The falsehood of tears.
“I can speak, Trevor. But I usually wait until there’s someone worth talking to,” I replied. My voice wasn’t cold or angry. It was blandly neutral. I was only stating fact.
Trevor’s mortification was apparent and I heard him mutter “bitch” under his breath before walking out of the bookstore.
Bitch.
Was I a bitch for only telling him the truth? For not sparing a stranger’s feelings?
Maybe.
But I didn’t want people to love me.
I was beyond love.
Smile, Layna, then people will love you.
My mother’s advice had made me hate her. As though the opinions of others should matter more than my own.
I spent my life alone. My social skills nonexistent after years of denying myself true interaction. Nurture as opposed to nature.
Or so I hoped.
Or so I feared.
I was alone…
Until I found someone worth the effort.
Then I would hand over just the tiniest, most important pieces of me. Just enough to make it count.
It was survival at its finest.