It had become a sort of pilgrimage.
Amidst the sound of notebooks slapping shut, chairs scraping, and feet shuffling out the door, you would be able to hear the single beat of discomfort emitting from my chest if you were listening hard enough. Class was over, it was the afternoon, there were no more excuses.
So I would walk. To the Library.
Up the stairs to the Fifth Floor.
Around the corner to the P stacks.
And then I would walk by. Again. And Again.
And as I got bolder, I would run my fingers down the spines and halfheartedly read titles, each more somber sounding than the last. I was too scared to be here, to be looking at these books, to be flipping their pages and possibly having the aura of their previous readers settle upon my skin and somehow link us.
After so many hours spent sitting on the ground between those shelves, I got courageous, or reckless if you prefer that word. So four books sit on my desk, stacked so their spines face away from me. I don't touch them for fear that they'll open up and bite me to pieces.
