That Sexy Librarian and Me

38th

seventy six days

halved

Cell phones never did have any use, apart from the obvious. He had never been one to care for those fancy ones. Actually, he would be lying if he said that. He had always wanted those big fancy phones, the ones that held the value of pride. The ones that forced a random stranger to come and comment. The ones that held real worth.

It wasn't much, just a simple one. 

He had broken his phone one day, long ago. He realized he had thought that he had broken his heart, because the phone was irreplaceable, they had said. They couldn't fix it. 

As he sat there waiting for the dark, his eyes downcast as people came and people went, he thought of the simple Motorola model that sat on his desk at home, right next to the phone, where he sat when he had nothing else to do.

When he had everything else to do.

Completely intact, it broke his heart just looking at it.

"I'm late," the girl said as he felt the roughness of his face, wondering when the last time was that he had bothered shaving. "And I know it's been a month, but I have a good--"

Without a word, he pointed to the board on the wall that displayed the current rates for late returns.

"That's... I can't afford that."

I couldn't afford to lose her, but I have no money, and a place of hers that smells like her even now. He looked at her and thought and frowned. You're fucking peachy compared to me.

"Pay half now, half later. I'll give you a slip."

"Alright," she grinned. "Thanks so much!"

"What's it like, living in a hellhole?" Maddie asked when she called. He wouldn't have answered if he had known it was just her. He had been showering when the phone rang. Running to it stark naked and soaked with soap and water wasn't a sane way of living, even he knew that. 

"It's like drowning, only worse."

"I told you, move on,"

"Why do you keep saying that?" he asked as he leaned against the desk, his eyes on the controller she always used when they played on the PS. "Has she moved on?"

The silence didn't help any.

"Maddie,"

"She's not exactly a saint, but she hasn't moved on."

"So she's seeing someone."

A second later, when he was convincing himself she wouldn't answer that, she did. 

"Not the way she saw you."

Watching other couples was the hardest, especially when they didn't care half as much about each other. Some girl he knew he took on a date, a girl whose name he couldn't remember, was now going steady with Chris Asshole Salbo. The douche hadn't treated a girl right in his life, and now he had her to take to the movies, to enjoy long, intimate conversations with. To be with, basically. And it broke him to know he'd never have that.

Not as long as he waited for Athenia to call him back.

Saturday was an easy day, easier than the rest. The whole world shut down and slept in while he sat mostly alone in the library, reminiscing the days he could've been more than a regular friend to the woman his whole world revolved around.

As he walked home he realized even taking a breath took effort.

On the doorstep sat his mother, whose blonde hair looked nothing like Athenia's, whose face looked nothing like Athenia's, whose fancy, expensive therapist dress looked nothing like Athenia's.

If he went back five seconds, he knew he'd still hope it was Athenia waiting for him there, that two months had been enough separation, that she couldn't live without him either. Even now as he went back in time and hoped to see Athenia, knowing it wasn't Athenia, knowing it can't be her since it was his mother who had come to see him, he wondered if he had finally felt the worst kind of pain.

Drowning willingly, slowly, steadily, breathlessly.

"Happy birthday," he heard his brother's voice as he stepped forward with a wrapped present in hand. "Here,"

"Thanks, August."

"You're welcome."

One look at his mother told him she had been crying. One more look told him he couldn't handle this today.

"Thank you, really," he told her as he hugged her. "But I can't--"

"It's your birthday. That's all that matters. I'm not taking any other answers."

Augustus sat on the couch and eyed the controllers. "Who plays on the PS?"

"I do," he told him. "Do you want to?"

"I'll get started on lunch." His mum said before disappearing. Well, she couldn't completely disappear. It was a really small apartment.

"We'll play NFS?" 

"NFS is good,"

"NFS is fun."

Lunch was turkey sandwiches and pudding, with homemade potato chips.

"I love these," Remy said as he munched on one.

"I know,"

"She even bought those especially big potatoes for you," Augustus told him. 

That made him smile. "Thanks, Mom,"

"Anytime, sonny boy."

Later they watched their mother's favourite series, The Good Wife, on TV and then went on to playing some cards while Augustus played on the PS.

They didn't talk about the state of the apartment, not even as they got to cleaning it.

They didn't talk about how he refused to change the sheets.

They didn't address the women's dirty laundry put away in a bag in the closet.

They didn't say anything apart from the obvious, which, really, needed no saying.

"I love you," she whispered to him as they left that evening. "You know where to reach me."