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"I'm not stalking you," she muttered, looking around the room. I watched her in slight curiosity as she ignored my existence, disappearing into a row of floor to ceiling bookshelves. If it weren't for the quick sound of her heartbeat pounding in my eardrums, I would've thought she had no interest in me, but that wasn't the case.
When we first met, the sound was steady. There was no trace of fear in her eyes or from any body language that I had observed. The more days she spent here, the more reactions to my presence there were. Sometimes it would be a quick and sharp intake of breath, and other times it would be me catching her look at me.
Normally people were afraid first and then remained that way, but the reverse of her reactions made me question if her reactions were truly out of fear. It wasn't as if I cared what it was either way, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't pique my interest.
"What are you looking for?" I questioned, lifting my book once again and sitting back.
"Umm." She re-emerged from behind a shelf and craned her neck to look around, her curly hair falling into her face. "Would you happen to know where the Bibles are kept?"
"You read the Bible?" I deadpanned.
"No."
I lowered my book once again and raised a brow at her. "Why not?"
"Are you encouraging me to read it?"
I scoffed, shaking my head and she smiled at me before crossing the long tables in the library, to the shelves closest to me. "I thought all Upperworlders were forced to read it in school."
"We were," she muttered.
"So you do read it."
"For an A?" She asked. "Definitely."
The disinterest she showed in her home's religious book began planting more questions than I already had about her. In any trips I've gone to Heaven, I had to fight off their residents like flies. They would line up on the sidewalks of the streets reading Bible verses to me hoping that somehow I'd burst into ashes.
Unfortunately for them, I knew more about the holy book than they did. My father was never interested-in fact, he made me swear off ever touching it, but I figured it would be best to know our enemies. And what better way to do so than to read the closest thing he had to a biography?
"Ah! There it is," Queen said, making me snap out of my thoughts and turn back to her. She raised herself on the tip of her toes, her arm reaching far past her head and my eyes trailed down her body.
It was none of my business what she decided to wear, but I wished I wasn't a fan of everything she decided on. Whether she was fully clothed, or half naked...I'd wonder what made her choose it that morning.
That was a habit of mine I thought stopped years ago; unintentionally comparing people's actions, choices, and interactions to my own. I could hardly pay attention to myself long enough to throw some diversity into my wardrobe, and I wondered how other people did it.
