The Haven

Chapter 12

That was fast. Nikolai looked over to the sound of the heavy door of the Sciences library creeking open. He waved to Elsa.

"So what are you doing here?" Elsa's voice whispered into the dead silence of the library as she pulled out a chair and sat down across from him.

Nikolai looked back down to his hands, currently busy shredding a Mountain Dew label. He shrugged, freeing another strand from the green bottle. He tore it off completely, set it between two pages like a bookmark, and looked up again. "Same as yesterday," he said. "Looking for information."

"But... I mean..." Elsa's eyes moved idly over the wrecked pop label. "Didn't you want to go through your own library first? Your parents', I mean. If you want to find something they missed, wouldn't it make sense to start with what they had?"

"No," said Nikolai then shook his head. "I mean, yes I do. And yeah... that does make sense. But..." He took a breath and looked away. His gaze fell on one of the fancy Roman pillar holding up the library's cavernous ceiling. His eyes followed the swoop and swish of it's carved base. He blinked hard, trying to smooth the tension out of his eyes, so he didn't look like he was glaring at the marble curly-cues."I guess I just need a break," he said. "I need a break from... from that place. Even if something's buried in there... I just need to get out. For a little while."

"Oh," said Elsa. "Yeah of course. I get it." Her words were soft, and this time not whisper-in-the-library soft. They were sad soft. Sympathetic and mournful. Her eyes flicked down to her own hands, folded gently on the wide mahogany desk.

Stop being a dick, Nikolai silently berated himself.

Shame stirred inside him at the softness in Elsa's voice. Nikolai wanted to be okay. He wanted to get on with life and be happy and let others be happy around him and get on with their lives. But the quiet sympathy in her voice reminded him that he wasn't. It reminded him that he wasn't ok, and that the fact that he wasn't ok did worry people. It reminded him that he really should stop glaring at pillars and go back to reading a fucking book, or find something else productive to do so he could stop bothering people.

He took a calming breath and smiled an I'm-totally-ok smile and looked back at Elsa. "Hey," he said,"everything here isnew. There's way more of a chance that there's stuff here – maybe even a lot of stuff – that my parents didn't already have." His lips suddenly pulled into a wide, genuine smile, and he sat up a little straighter. "And hey," he said. "I actually went to class this morning!"

Elsa frowned. "What class?" she said. "I didn't even see you at school. Where were you?"

"No not those classes," he said. I am so done with those classes."These classes." He waved both hands around at the general vicinity. "Here."

Elsa's eyes followed his gestures to nowhere in particular, then came back to him, crinkled in confusion. "You went to college classes?"

Nikolai nodded. "I think I'm going to like this university. And their spring quarter just started, so I didn't even have to catch up."