Broken- And Fixed Again- (A Jamilton Fanfic)

Chapter 32: Chocolate Strawberries

//TW: small mention of abuse and rape\\

Thomas

"You alright?"

The voice jolted me from my thoughts, and reality around me sharpened, emerging from the undefined blur it had been moments before. I blinked as my mind came back to my body, returned from its harrowing journey millions of miles lost wandering the space between galaxies. The book in my hands became solid once more, no longer a hazy concept of a story.

"Of course!" I said with a smile as I glanced over my shoulder at Aaron, his body silhouetted by the light pouring in through the massive arched windows set into the marble walls. I gave one last look to the book between my hands before returning it to its spot on the shelf as Aaron stepped to my side, as if looking for the gateway to whatever separate world I had just been immersed in. "Why do you ask?"

Aaron shrugged. A small, teasing smile flicked upon his face as he added, "I didn't hear you running around the shelves or mumbling inanely to yourself about whatever book you were going to borrow next, so I just assumed—"

"Alright, alright," I shot back, returning my attention back to the thousands of books housed upon the library's shelves. Thousands of books, thousands of stories. Each one telling the tale of a survivor, like me. Somebody who had faced living nightmares, and against all odds, made it through again and again and triumphed over all evil. Their names were eternally memorialized in ink and paper, to be stored in catalogues and upon the shelves of one of the greatest libraries in the world.

I glanced around the quiet library, at the rain-streaked glass panes allowing gray light to dance upon the wooden floor. At the fellow book-lovers milling through the shelves, searching for the next adventure to be swept up in. At the sweeping staircases and elegant furnishings, each element adding to the belief that this library is not as real as it is a memoir torn straight from my dreams and juxtaposed into reality, into a city that will never fully appreciate its historic beauty. At the face of one of my closest friends watching me with worry, a friend that I thought I had lost before, a friend whom I'd never thought would ever do this with me again.

It is moments like these that make me believe that it was all worth it.

Because before, I could never appreciate the small things. I could never appreciate a library for what it was, each individual story for the lives they unraveled within them. Sure, I had loved to read, and I had loved coming here, but it had never been the way it is now. It had never been an escape. Before James, I had lived moment to moment, always excited for the future and ready to leave behind the present.

But now?

Now, I am happy to enjoy each moment as I get them. I am happy to smile and to breathe and to live, things that I had always taken for granted before. But now, I will cherish every last second I get alive. Because you never know when everything will change.

"Well, what books do you have?" Aaron whispered, glancing at the books I clutched close to my chest as I left the alcove between the shelves and stepped into onto the main floor of the level we were on. I laid the four books flat out on a nearby table for him to look over. He snorted in amusement, glancing up at me with love and bewilderment. "A Darker Shade of Magic? The Night Circus? An Unkindness of Ghosts?" He shook his head. "You know you have two weeks to read all four of these right?"