2. Artemis #2
They continued to stare at me. I wasn’t sure if I was meant to reassure them or congratulate them for surviving the incident.
Intern One leaned forward. “Do you use it every day?”
“Yes,” I said.
Because routine was the only thing holding me together, but I left that part out.
Intern Two blinked. “Do you… live here?”
“I have a home.”
And I did. I even had one person who checked whether I had eaten. I was winning at life.
Intern Three whispered to Intern Two, “Told you she had a home.”
I sipped my matcha as they continued to stare at me. The silence went on long enough for me to question every decision in my life that led to this moment.
I had gone to graduate school for this.
Intern One broke first. “You give off main character energy.”
I choked on my drink. Absolutely not. “No,” I said.
I had walked away from a dissertation defense because I decided I would never be ready. Main characters finished things. I edited them to death.
I took another slow sip of matcha and forced my shoulders down from around my ears.
“Well,” I said lightly. “Anyway.”
And because the universe had a thing for dramatic timing, thunder cracked hard enough to rattle the break room window.
The lights flickered.
All three interns looked at me.
I stared at the ceiling.
“If the building collapses,” I said calmly, “follow the emergency exit signs.”
Intern Two’s eyes widened. “Will you—”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”
Their relief was immediate and terrifying.
Fartie Artie, revered witch of the break room.
Whenever I fumbled a social interaction, my nickname from elementary school always came back to taunt me.
I pushed open the door to the main floor.
A sudden blast of wind from outside rattled the windows hard enough to make one of the panes tremble. Three shelves over, a book fell and landed with a dull thud.
I froze. Told myself it was the storm. Of course it was the storm. This building tended to complain whenever the weather changed. Just then, my stomach growled loud enough to compete with the thunder.
Nutrition was often theoretical in my life. My thoughts drifted to Eloise, my next-door neighbor, who had probably baked something today. She baked when she was happy. Or worrying. Or when she thought I needed to eat something with carbs.
She claimed it helped her think, but I was starting to suspect she used it to manage my moods more than her own.
She never said anything about it. She just showed up, which now that I thought about it, felt…dangerous. And kind.
Eloise was the most unexpected gift in this whole move to be Head Librarian at this library with a rare books collection.
I’d never thought my best friend would turn out to be a woman in her seventies, but she’d managed to teach me more in three months than anyone had taught me in my entire adult life.
Including how to let someone in. To let someone stay.
The thought eased some of the tightness in my chest. Going home to her kitchen light and whatever she pulled from the oven felt safe, even when the rest of my life felt like a manuscript with missing chapters.
I looked out across the dim library, and the shelves arranged in clean lines. The space had a kind of order I could breathe in.
I loved this place. I loved my job.
Which was an accomplishment for me. Loving things had always felt risky, but I was starting to let myself do it anyway. I was even considering getting a cat.
And yet…there was an ache. A wanting. A sense that I was waiting for something I would never get.
I wanted a reason to feel awake again, because right now, it felt like I was sleepwalking through life, like I was merely existing instead of living. Oh, I functioned, and I smiled at all the right intervals, but something was missing.
Sighing, I rolled my shoulders back and settled into the final stretch of my shift.
I stepped toward the front desk, feeling the shift from focused calm to creeping exhaustion. I checked the clock above the exit.
Eight forty p.m. Twenty minutes left. Almost done.
Surely nothing catastrophic would happen.
Although, historically, the universe liked to intervene when you least expected it.
The wind battered the windows, and the long panes vibrated from the pressure. Thunder rolled across the river and hit the building with enough force to rattle a few loose tiles in the ceiling. The lights flickered in a pattern that suggested imminent betrayal.
“Love that for me,” I said to no one.
Libraries were temples of order, but unfortunately, storms did not respect that.
I grabbed the wet-floor sign and rolled it toward the entrance. The lobby had collected a layer of rainwater, and the last thing I needed was a lawsuit—or another intern telling me we needed protective gear.
As I put the sign in place, the front door opened, and a drenched college kid staggered inside. His hoodie dripped with enough water to qualify as a minor flood event.
Dazed, he looked around. “Do you have towels?”
I stared at him and thought, this is a library, not a gym, but realized just before saying it that it would probably be a rude comment to make to a patron. So, I refrained.
Growth.
I walked to the desk and took a stack of paper towels out from behind it. I was chronically unable to deny basic human needs.
He took the paper towels from me, then shuffled off, leaving a trail of water that stretched across the entryway. I stared at it for a long moment before grabbing more towels and crouching to mop it up.
My brain kept sliding between exhaustion and longing with no intention of stopping: I was tired. I wanted warmth. I wanted more.
I did not let myself define more.
I thought of my apartment with its soft lighting and view of the river lights. The delicious smell of something Eloise had pulled from her oven. The steady comfort of returning to a place where someone was always glad to see me.
A tiny ache formed under my ribs, but I quickly tamped it down when I heard the familiar shuffle of footsteps behind me.
“Now what have I told you about doing my job?” Mr. Foster, our ancient custodial worker, asked. He carried a mop like it was an extension of his arm. His voice always had a tired warmth to it, the kind that made people listen without thinking.
I straightened a little. “The kid was dripping. I had to contain the situation.”
He huffed. “Contain the situation. You sound like the safety manual.” He started mopping and gave me a pointed look. “You run this whole place. Let an old man earn his paycheck.”
“I was already down here,” I said.
“You’re always already somewhere. I worry you’re going to file yourself away and forget to pull the index card back out.”
My mouth twitched.
Mr. Foster was one of the rare people who made me hesitate before assuming the worst. He was steady and predictable, and his kindness wasn’t a performance. He reminded me that some people were worth trusting and worth the effort of building something with them.
And he always managed to shine a light on the part of me I tried to ignore. “I’m fine.”
“You’re something. Fine is not the word I would use, but I know better than to argue with you before closing.” He handed me a dry towel. “Go finish whatever it is librarians do when the rest of the world has gone home.”
I watched him for a moment, caught between gratitude and embarrassment. He wiped the floor with practiced motions, the puddle shrinking under the mop.
A gust of wind slapped the windows, and he glanced at the entrance. “Storm’s getting worse. I should check the far hallway window before it leaks again. Would hate for more books to be ruined.” He tapped the mop on the tile twice, a habit he’d never explained to me.
“Go on, then. I’ve got this.”
He walked away toward the archives hall, humming under his breath. I clutched the towel, unsure why my chest felt warm in that tired, aching way it did whenever someone was kind to me without expecting anything.
The door opened again.
I didn't even look up from what remained of the puddle. “Ten minutes before close,” I said.
The wet-floor sign skidded across the tiles and spun in a slow, uneven turn. Something heavy hit the floor hard enough to push water outward in a thin splash, and a startled sound cut through the noise of the storm.