3. Soren
Soren
I’ve been hiding in the poetry section for an hour, which is longer than reshelving usually takes, but the lights hum at a nice frequency back here and nobody bothers me.
Nobody cares if I hum under my breath, or sit cross-legged on the floor and doodle in my notebook.
Or study, which I should probably be doing...
Professor Hannover appears between the stacks like she was summoned by the sound of my procrastination.
She’s got her reading glasses shoved up into her gray-streaked bun, silver rings on every other finger, and one of those deliberately paint-stained linen shirts that says tenured and thriving.
I catch sight of what’s in her hand, and I want to crawl into the stacks.
“Soren.”
“Professor Hannover. Hi. I’m...” I slide a battered Neruda between Nye and Oliver, slowly, like I can delay the inevitable. “Working.”
“You’re touching up an already alphabetized shelf at a speed that screams avoidance.” She brandishes the flyer for the Festival. “Now, you know what I think. That last series you read at workshop? The sequence about the birds?”
My stomach drops. “Those were for class.”
“They were for class, sure, but they were also the most honest confessional work I’ve seen from a student in years.
” She taps the flyer against my chest until I take it.
“This festival eats that kind of thing alive. It’s all narrative-driven, emotionally specific, performed live. Your set would be perfect.”
“I don’t have a set.”
“You have poems about anonymous wooden birds and a perfect alpha who might not exist. That’s a set, Soren.”
Hearing it out loud makes it sound insane. It also sounds like exactly the kind of thing I’d pay to hear someone else read, which is unfortunate.
“I don’t want to mess anything up.” I know she doesn’t understand what I mean, but it’s the truth. I’m too embarrassed to explain it to her.
Hannover gives me a look that’s somewhere between affection and exasperation. “Soren. You’re a writer. The whole job is saying the thing out loud and trusting that it survives. Believing in the story doesn’t break it.”
She squeezes my shoulder once, firm, and walks away. Her sandals slap softly on the library carpet until she rounds the corner and I’m alone again with the books and the flyer crumpling in my fist.
I smooth it out. The deadline is coming up soon.
Keats shifts in my pocket, and I press my thumb against her for comfort. How do I explain without sounding crazy that putting my poems on a stage feels like ripping the glass off a snow globe and expecting the scene to stay perfect?
I pull a sticky note from the pad in my back pocket, uncap the pen behind my ear, and hover it there.
This is something else I do: leave little notes in the books for people to find.
Usually I write stuff like You’ll get through this or Make today a good day.
But today, words are hard. I stare at the pen for a long time, so long that an ink spot forms underneath the tip.
Then I sigh and scribble out Say yes. I tuck the note into the book I just shelved, fingers hovering on the edge of the paper for one heartbeat before I let it go.
Someone will find it. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next month. They’ll read the words and feel a little better, and they won’t know where it came from. Anonymous kindness. Tiny spells for strangers.
***
“Absolutely not,” I say, watching Jude scroll through KnotMe profiles on his laptop with the laser focus he usually reserves for sneaker drops. “I’m not doing this.”
“You’re doing this,” Jude says without looking up.
He’s on the floor, cross-legged, laptop on his knees.
His claiming mark peeks above the collar of Rhys’s stolen shirt, silver-pink and healed.
“You’ve been waiting for fate to hand-deliver you a soulmate via woodland creature, and I love that for you, but we need a backup plan. ”
“The birds aren’t a plan. They’re a...” I search for the word. “Situation.”
“A situation,” Benji repeats from the rug, where he’s sprawled on his stomach drawing tiny, furious birds on one of my coasters with a Sharpie. Which is apparently his version of solidarity. “That’s what we’re calling it.”
“Benji drew you anger birds,” Milo calls from the kitchen, where he’s mixing cookie dough with the focus most people reserve for defusing bombs.
He nudges a glass of water toward the edge of the counter, like someone might want it later.
Milo always sets out more than anyone asked for. “That means he cares.”
“They’re not anger birds. They’re punk birds.” Benji holds up the coaster. The bird has a mohawk and what appears to be a middle finger. “See? Punk.”
“Gorgeous. I’ll treasure it forever.”
Jude pats the floor next to him. “Come here. Sit. Look at options. You don’t have to swipe right on anyone, just look.”
“I don’t want to look. Looking feels like giving up on—“
“On the mystery wood elf who’s been leaving you handmade gifts for a year and hasn’t introduced himself?
” Jude raises both eyebrows. “Babe. I love the romance of it. I made you a playlist about it. But at some point, waiting for someone who won’t show their face starts to feel less like faith and more like a really pretty cage. ”
That stings. Not because he’s wrong, but because I already know what the backup plan looks like.
I’ve done the KnotMe thing, once or twice.
Matched with perfectly nice alphas who had good hair and warm hands.
Went on dates that were fine. Ended up in beds that were also fine, but felt absolutely nothing close to the ache I carry around for a person I’ve never met.
One of them wrapped a blanket around me afterward and asked if I wanted to stay, and I almost cried because it was so close to the thing I actually want but not quite, the way a photocopy of a painting is technically the same image.
None of them carved me anything. None of them noticed which bench I sit on.
“You know what I think?” Benji says, still drawing.
His voice goes flat and casual, the way it does right before he says something sharp enough to draw blood.
“Whoever’s leaving those birds has it bad.
That’s not a prank and it’s not random. That’s long-game courting behavior. That’s siege-level commitment.”
The room goes quiet. Even Jude stops scrolling.
“I’m just saying.” Benji shrugs and goes back to his coaster. “Anyway. The app’s also fine, I guess.”
“Statistically,” Shay says from the hallway, where he’s doing something to the router with a screwdriver and his phone flashlight, “the probability of your anonymous admirer also being on KnotMe is nonzero. If fate is real, the app is just a delivery mechanism. You’re not betraying destiny by expanding your data set. ”
“Thank you, Shay, for making romance sound like a research methodology.”
“You’re welcome.”
Milo appears with a glass of wine I didn’t ask for and sets it on the coffee table near my knee. He gives me a pointed look. “You don’t have to go on a date if you don’t want to. But maybe just... see who’s out there? It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
I pick up the wine. Take a sip. Sit down next to Jude.
“Fine. Show me.”
The noise that comes out of Jude is barely human.
He swivels the laptop toward me and starts scrolling with commentary so rapid-fire I can barely keep up.
“Okay, this one’s cute but his bio says ‘fluent in sarcasm,’ which is a red flag for boring.
This one has three photos of his truck. Three.
So, clearly he’s not for you. This one—oh, absolutely not, I can see his toilet in the mirror selfie—“
“This one looks familiar,” Benji mutters, raising himself up on his arms to peer at Jude’s laptop. “Oh yeah, I remember that guy. What a waste of a perfectly good Friday night.”
“Benji, you are a cynical bitch, stop trying to scare Soren away from the hot alphas.”
I giggle, and suddenly we’re all laughing. This is what they do, every time. They fill the apartment back up.
“Oh,” Jude says. “What about this one? Derek. Local. Twenty-three. Alpha.” He turns the screen. “Decent jawline. Bio’s a little rough but the photos are solid.”
I look. Derek has brown hair, a square jaw, and a gym selfie at least tasteful enough to include a shirt. His bio says Looking for someone worth my time, which is... a choice.
“His bio is kind of aggressive.”
“His bio is confident.” Jude nudges me. “Swipe right. Just to see. If he matches, you can talk. If the talk is weird, you ghost. It’s KnotMe, not a marriage contract.”
“Nobody stays casual on KnotMe,” Shay calls from the hallway. “That app has a hundred percent fated-mate conversion rate in this friend group.”
“That’s not how statistics work,” Benji says.
“It’s exactly how statistics work when your sample size is four couples and a hookup app.”
“Delete the app,” Benji mutters, dropping his voice into a perfect impression of Knox’s low growl. Then, softer, almost to himself: “That’s what they all say eventually.”
I look at the screen. None of it feels right, and I know why. I’m holding every profile up against a ghost.
I swipe right anyway, half as a dare and half because Jude will probably take my phone if I don’t.
A match pops up immediately, KnotMe’s little animation doing its thing. It’s a Match! Jude screams. Actually screams, like I’ve won something. Milo claps once, soft. Benji holds up his punk bird coaster in what I think is a toast.
“I already regret this,” I say, but I’m smiling.
Derek messages first. Hey. Saw your profile. You’re cute. Coffee this week?
Jude reads it over my shoulder and gives it a six out of ten. “Low effort but not offensive. Respond with something warm but not desperate.”
I type Hey! Coffee sounds great. Tomorrow afternoon? and hit send before I can overthink it. Jude nods approvingly. Milo brings me a cookie still warm from the oven. Benji slides the finished coaster across the floor with his foot.
The punk bird stares up at me with its Sharpie mohawk and its middle finger, and I tuck it next to my wine glass like a tiny guardian. Seven carved birds on the shelf upstairs. One angry Sharpie bird down here, flipping off the universe on my behalf.
They stay for another hour. Jude FaceTimes Rhys, who appears rumpled and fond and tells me Derek better treat me right or he’ll “have words.” Milo’s phone buzzes with a text from Callum and his whole face goes red, so it’s clearly one of those kinds of texts.
Shay fixes whatever he was doing to the router and leaves to meet Declan.
Benji follows. Jude kisses my forehead on his way out.
“You’re going to be fine, baby omega. This is your chapter.”
Then they’re gone and the apartment is quiet again.
I wash Milo’s mixing bowl. Dry it. Put it away.
Wipe the counter. Turn on the music app on my phone because silence gets ambitious after nine, creeping in from the empty bedrooms like it’s been waiting its turn.
Jude’s old room still has his glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.
I’ve never taken them down. I tell myself it’s because I’d need a ladder, and I own a ladder, so.
From the windowsill, the birds watch me sit on my bed and open the laptop. My tiny carved congregation.
The Festival submissions page is already half-filled from the last time I opened it and chickened out.
My finger hovers over Submit. The cursor blinks. The AC kicks on down the hall with its dying-animal impression, and I almost laugh because even the apartment sounds nervous.
Saying yes to this and saying yes to Derek’s coffee date are the same gamble. Both of them are daring the jinx to come collect.
Hannover’s voice: Believing in the story doesn’t break it.
My own sticky note, tucked into Mary Oliver: Say yes.
I press Submit.
The screen changes. Thank you for your submission! A confirmation has been sent to your email. The auto-response pings my inbox before I’ve even exhaled.
I close the laptop. My hands are shaking, not a lot, but enough that when I reach for Stumble on the windowsill, I fumble her and have to catch her with both palms. I hold her up to the light from my desk lamp.
There’s still a faint trace of the original pine scent caught in the carving, and I bring her to my face, inhaling deep.
I put her back on the sill, careful, at the head of the row, next to Button.
“If you’re real,” I whisper to whoever made them, “now would be a really good time to show up.”