The Book Nook

27

 Alexandria set her glass down on the small round table. I couldn't help but look her up and down, in utter awe of the beauty standing before me. She was always attractive, but she'd consistently dressed casually, never had she embraced femininity like this. It could be agreed upon that girls could always seem to pull off looking like God's perfect models of refinement in dresses, but what Alexandria was doing with this dress was very near angelic.

The dress, azure blue like a cloudless summer sky, draped to the floor but was smooth against her legs. It was chiffon fabric, likely soft and smooth to the touch if one were to graze their fingers across it. The dress hooked over her right shoulder and connected with the small cross-section at her back where much of her milky skin showed. It was the most of her I'd ever remembered seeing.

She stepped in closer to me and motioned her head to the center of the room.

"Well, we're here anyway. Might as well."

At first I didn't know what she was referring to but then she tucked her right arm under my left and guided me towards the makeshift dance floor. Two or three other couples waltzed slowly along to the lounge music.

We had a lot of space so I decided not to worry about bumping into any others because clearly my attention was enraptured and I knew right away I'd hardly be able to pay attention to my surroundings.

Her arms went up to my neck and mine went to her waist. I could call this moment dreamlike but that seemed far too much of a cliché.

Alexandria and I stood at almost the same height, leading me to suspect she also had heels on under the shoes. She was already naturally quite tall, but now she had me beat by a fraction.

I didn't know what to say, nor did she make any move for conversation; we just guided each other around the floor as time passed and music took me out of the world and made me feel like we were the only two in the room; like we were back again the only two in the whole of the large library, the space all to ourselves, this evening catered specifically to us.

"I feel like I'm in a movie," I spoke in a low voice, enough to hear between us over the music.

"You are in a movie, silly," she giggled; her large dow-eyes following mine unfalteringly. "Well, a book, really. One that's playing out in reality the way you'd think of as a movie."

"What?" I furrowed my brow.

"I kid, I kid. You're right. But stop breaking the fourth wall. Can't we just live in our fantasy fiction for just this moment?"

I risked a smile. "I still can't believe you did this. You put this all together yourself?"

She shrugged, not answering.

"Are these all your friends?"

More non-answers. She just closed her eyes and let the music lull her, swaying gracefully along with my movements. At that moment I felt she was almost too beautiful to disturb, that I should just let her be, let her have a moment like the one we currently occupied.

Physically, this was as close together as we'd ever been for more than a second. Our faces were mere inches apart and I could examine every detail of her. But I felt like I was seeing something else that I hadn't quite focused on close enough before. She had created this themed midnight party, like something taken out of a novel from a different time period, and put the two of us in it as if we were no longer a part of the reality that we knew, but so we could live inside of a fictional world where everything was of her own creation.

I was reminded of some of the eerie words that the older man had said to me mere moments before.

You're both just trying to narrate yourselves into a safe place.