Checked Out

Good Condition

 Good Condition:

        "L, L, E, L, E, L, E, L, E, R, L, E, R…." she muttered as her cool spearmint breath fanned the rows about her.

        She worked her way down the crooked line in the same fashion as if she were going over a script. With repetition and precision. 

        Foreign fingers dug in and out, rocking the spines of skeletons that framed whatever she touched as they worked their way toward her final destination.

        She was so close that she could taste the sweet blood of victory. This was how it was supposed to feel, she thought. The L-E-P section just came and went with one sparing glance, so the L-E-R section had to be around the bend.

        She hurried to the next column as if she was losing breath, still repeating those same Ls and Es and Rs that became the authors of books once they were spelt out entirely. Those same ones who had passed long ago from which she was now passing.

        Behind the façade, they left a small essence of their being, waiting to be picked up by the hungry minds of those who were living and abled to carry their words to the sound of beating hearts. This was how the world worked, in ways she could not fathom.

        She was late. Her watch told her with conviction, calling her out and striking a nerve in her very toes. She sprung on, hands skipping books like she was skipping rocks, and her mind was far off in the distance, a place where those rocks would soon simmer down for years to come until someone had the courage to move them again. That was how the world worked sometimes.

        “L, E, R, L, E—Oh sorry.” The sharp dash of her hand met his hot-ironclad touch that had yet to be doused in water. She recoiled her hand as the steam lingered between her fingers, giving it a friendly vibe the second time around.

        “Excuse me. I didn’t see you there.” Her eyes trailed towards the owner of the hand she accidentally shoved aside in her haste to be done and gone. She was usually more careful, but he just happened to be present to witness her folly.

        Her real apology hung behind her lips, lodged halfway between her tongue and the inside row of her bottom teeth. It waited with an impatience that could no longer be tamed, freeing itself into the quiet stale air that the library had imprisoned. “S-Sorry.”

        She cringed inwardly out of habit. Strangers had this kind of effect on her. She could never get use to them. Strangers that smiled at her were the worst kind. She could never figure out why anyone would smile at her when they had only met unless they had ulterior motives. She noticed that he was doing that thing where he was smiling at her.

        It was the first smile he had offered to anyone besides the lady behind the checkout desk.

        She cursed herself for displaying her stuttering apology in front of the handsome stranger. He was too good-looking to be real, she thought, as she watched his lips moved to silent words.

        "I’m afraid it was my fault too. I wasn't looking." He smiled at her again. He had a very nice smile. One of the nicest she had seen in a while. Even from the side, his smile never seemed to falter in its form. A finesse in the mastery of mouths.

        His voice disturbed the illusion she created around him, but she didn’t mind. “Here it is.” He placed his sight forward and plunked it from its resting space. Now that she was here, he didn’t have to speak to the characters anymore. He could say it to the characters and her. He was lucky, it was not every day he had such a good audience.