Page 56 of Yours, For Good

My eyes were fixed on Nora. Her admiration threaded through my guts, anchoring me to the moment. It would take a single spark to ignite the jet fuel under my skin.

"Is that…" Her eyes widened as she searched for words. "Is that the stairs to the second floor of books?"

I came closer to her, so I could peer at her face with as much attention as she paid to the library. Her eyes continued to roam over the room.

"Would you like to go up?" I asked.

Her sight dropped to mine. "Yes," she breathed.

The glint in her eyes was the spark to set me aflame. The heat that moved through me echoed the many poems held in the pages through the room. The kind people everywhere referenced to speak about love—

Not that that's what I felt. How could I know? I had never felt it and had no idea what to look for. But I clearly felt something. Affection, of course. Attraction. Maybe a bit of a sudden crush on her, but it still made sense to feel affection for my friend.

Fuck. I would have to keep an eye on that, too.

I doused the fire in my chest to tame it down, and guided Nora to what she called the second floor; the built-in bookshelves had a balcony wrapping around the room, creating a pathway midways to the ceiling. With twelve rows of books, the ledge worked better than a ladder to access the higher levels.

Nora traced the spines of a few books, before picking a seemingly random one and opening it in front of her face.

"Am I… living?" She took a deep sniff off its pages. She moaned.

I clenched my teeth. "I'd check your pulse, but I'm pretty sure you're still here."

If she let me, I would put my hand around her neck for many reasons.

Shit. No. She shouldn't let me do that, when she didn't know who I really was. I shouldn't let myself imagine it, either.

I lifted pleading eyes to the overly-decorated wooden vault above us. Thoughts like that had to stop before they multiplied.

She put the book back on its shelf and chose another one. She opened it to the first page and read the copyright information.

"You grew up in this house, right?" Her finger landed right below the publishing date: 1912.

I nodded. "This is one of my favorite rooms in the place."

"What was it like?" Her eyes searched my face, like she couldn't make sense of things but was dying to know, and I held the answers. Her voice had lowered, too, like the question had escaped her in a breath.

"It was… a lot." I rubbed my lips together and leaned against the banister, hands deep in my pockets. "A lot of expectations, rules, history…"

"Lots of books."

"Yeah. I could ask for a trip and someone would take me; I could ask for a toy and I'd have it the next morning. What I found in books mattered more in the end."

"What did you find in books?"

She put the novel back on the shelf and, crossing her arms, leaned on the built-in and a million words. Her eyes remained on me as she waited for my answer.

I didn't have to think for too long. "I found periods in time I could never be in. Places in the universe I could never travel to. People I would never get to meet."

She cocked her head. "The things that were beyond your reach."

Maybe that's why I felt the way I did for Nora. I had always searched for what existed far from my grasp, and I could see her tantalizing me from a place right past my fingertips.

"Javier," she added in an amused reproach. "No wonder the film noir hero is so full of ennui. You damned yourself to dissatisfaction."

I laughed. The books around us absorbed most of the sound, but whatever reached her made her grin with pride.

"Right," I managed. "I should also seek things I can reach."