by Eden O'Neill
“Mmhmm. College.” He placed a book, stopping. “I’m a freshman at the university a town over.”
“Awesome,” I said, so not awesome. I didn’t really care, and he seemed way too about this conversation right now for my liking.
He lingered. “Where do you go?”
This guy…
“Community college,” I gritted, daring to face him. “I go to the one here. I’m a freshman too.”
I figured this was a safe lie considering he said he went to the university outside of town. What were the odds of him taking a class at the community college if that were the case?
I waited, trying to play off the fact that I very much had damp armpits. I paused for a retort, but when I didn’t get one, the boy turning away, I let out a breath.
“Name’s Ramses, by the way,” he said, gathering a few books off a rolling cart. “You?”
I really didn’t want to give this boy my name, but he was totally bugging.
“December,” I told him. “And Ramses? Like the pharaoh?”
He smirked, shaking his head when he shelved more books. “Yeah, but I don’t know how much of a king I am.”
Being a king was highly overrated, any kind of royalty the same as far as I was concerned. He hit a sore spot with me. Though, unbeknownst to him, and when he came over this time, he was book-free.
“Nice to meet you, December,” he said, smiling a little. His smile faded. “You got fifteen minutes. You can’t be on this thing all day. Sorry.”
Fucking Christ. This guy’s chill could make ice sculptures, but he at least left me this time so I could have those few minutes. I was finishing up when he came through the back again, but this time from a store room. He had a sign in his hands reading “Help Wanted,” and when I asked him about that he stopped his pace. He lifted it. “The librarian is looking. He lives upstairs and wants some help for days when I’m in classes. Why?”
I didn’t necessarily want but needed a job. I needed money, food and working at some place as easygoing as this would definitely help.
“I’m looking for work,” I said, standing. I had my mini duffel bag with me, picking it up and placing it over my shoulder. “If he’s looking for someone…”
“I don’t know,” he returned, that familiar eye on me. He tossed an arm against the shelf. “He’s looking for someone who can handle responsibility. Someone on the up-and-up who can take care of things around here.”
Meaning, he didn’t want a thief, and shaking my head, I turned around.
“Never mind,” I told him, moving to print off the articles I found, then log off. I was done here and would make sure I used the internet at the cafe from now on. I thought Ramses would move along, go to the front of the store and put up his sign, but he didn’t, steps coming slowly toward me.
They stopped. “If that’s you, I can put a good word in, though. What day could you start?”
Eleven
December
Come on. Come on. Juice up. Juice up…
The second the dead battery signal faded away made my life, my phone screen lighting up. Immediately, text messages and missed calls started flooding in, and I hunkered down, trying to stay quiet in the library’s bathroom. It was just about the only place I could go where Ramses didn’t hover, and as he tended to hover everywhere, I had to wait until here and this moment to put good use to my first paycheck. I got the cell phone charger as soon as humanly possible, and after obviously feeding myself, I headed down to one of the local banks to cash my paycheck. I’d been working about a week in the library, and it’d been great for the most part. Albeit boring.
I’d choose that over what I came from.
Dragging my thumb across the lock screen, I studied text messages first, Birdie, Kiki, and Shakira, as well as some from Rosanna and, of course, Aunt Celeste. Dad hadn’t left any text messages, obviously not his bag, but he’d left enough phone calls to fill my voicemail box to the point of suffocation. He’d probably shut my cell phone off by now, but maybe not if he wanted a means to call me.
I put the phone to my ear, not listening to his voicemails but Aunt Celeste’s.
“Please call me,” she said about three weeks ago. “What are you thinking? This isn’t like you, and it’s scaring me.”
I closed my eyes, going to another.
“December Lindquist, you’re putting me through hell right now. Call me. What the hell…”
Her voice had broken up, and before I thought better of it, I called her, hoping to God my dad did shut my cell phone off.
“December? December, thank God!”
He hadn’t shut my phone off, my back sliding down the wall until my butt touched the floor. I closed my eyes. “Hi, Aunt C.”
“‘Hi, Aunt C.,’” she chimed, an exasperated and almost disturbed tone to her voice that gutted me. I hadn’t meant to hurt her, just wanted to relieve her. She sounded anything but, breathing hard into the phone. “Are you okay? Where are you?”
I wasn’t telling her that, staying silent.
“You’re not telling me that,” she concluded, my aunt smart. “But at least tell me if you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. I swear, and I haven’t been ignoring you on purpose. My phone died and…”
“Oh, don’t give me that, December Lindquist. You could have called. You could have called instead of leaving your dad a note and me a cell phone message. Christ.”
She didn’t normally talk that way, and though she had worked a lot and I pretty much raised myself growing up, she had been there for me. She cared about me, took me in.
I pressed a palm to my eyes. “I just needed space, okay?”
“You needed space.” Her tone was dry. “What about me? What about your dad? December… he didn’t know what to think.”
This had been the first time in true history my aunt went to bat for my dad—ever—but she was so wrong about what she was saying. My dad didn’t care, not really, and those last words I heard him share with her through a thick wall showed me that. I was an obligation just like I had been to her. He didn’t know what to do with me, something he’d actually said on, of all days, the worst one of my life. I buried my sister that day. He buried a child, and his first thought was to rid himself of another. You’d think he’d learn after losing my mom and sister the value of family.
I squeezed eyes beneath my palm.
“This is something your sister would have done, did do,” Aunt Celeste said, teary. “Please don’t do anything stupid. Please don’t—”
“I’m not,” I emphasized, true tears now. Fuck, I hadn’t managed to cry in weeks. I wiped them away. “I’m safe. I’m doing well. I took a bus out here and I’m fine.”
“Took it where? Honey, let me come and get you or at least send for you. Are you close?”
“No, I’m not, and no, I’m not coming back. At least not now, Aunt C., and don’t push.”
My warning had her silent, a true warning even if I hadn’t meant to threaten. My aunt had about two more seconds of this before the call went stale, and I think she knew that.
“Call your dad and call me every day, or anytime you need something. Do you have money?”
“I do. I got a job.”
“You got a job,” she parroted, her voice dry. “A high school dropout.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I guess I was. My dad had called the school before we left the Midwest for my sister’s service, telling them it’d be a little bit before I came back. Something told me running away hadn’t been what he had in mind when he originally made the call, though.
I dampened my lips. “Goodbye, Aunt C.”
“Goodbye? December, wait—”
I clicked off before I could get more emotional, rising from my bottom. I went to the mirror, and a little flushed, I washed the tears away from a face filled with color. I’d gotten a good shower this morning, so at least my hair looked decent, up and out of my face. Ramses also didn’t seem to mind the nose piercing
, so that stayed too. After getting in a few breaths, I threw the paper towel away I used to dry my face, then clicked off the light in the bathroom, closing the door. Ramses was at the front when I came out, dark eyes flicking up from the computer.
“Everything go all right in there?” he asked, a little less chilly now that he knew I had no intent to rob the library blind. I never saw, but I was sure he took inventory of each and every one of the articles here after my first couple shifts.
I smirked a little. “Did you seriously just ask me if it went okay in the bathroom?”
Overly bushy eyebrows shot up like he just became aware of what he’d both asked and said. I mean, his eyebrows weren’t overgrown but they were definitely thick like his curly hair. He scrubbed in the curls. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”
Happy to laugh, I did let it go, Ramses not a foreign thing to me anymore. Something told me he never planned to actually talk to anyone around this place, let alone work with someone else. We rarely got people coming through here, and when we did, he completely filled their ear with nerd speak. He quite literally knew everything about all the stuff on the shelves here, even out-talking the librarian, Myron, who I met my first official day as staff. The older man kept to himself for the most part, staying upstairs unless needed, and with someone like Ramses managing the library a hell of a lot of the time, that wasn’t much.
All that awkwardness with us out of the way, Ramses logged off the front computer, then reached back to the coat rack behind the desk. He grabbed a jacket there, suede and nice.
“You just about ready to lock up?” he asked, slipping it on. “I can walk you home if need be since it’s getting late.”
He’d picked up on the fact that I didn’t have a car the first day when he caught me walking down the street, so it was easy for him to assume I either lived nearby or took public transport. Either way, I wasn’t off the hook when it came to explanation. He did have a car, so even if I claimed I didn’t live close and attempted to take public transpiration he’d probably try to drive me someplace to be nice.
Fucking chivalry.
It was seriously biting me in the ass right now. I’d given him a fake address I’d Googled on the library computers, and he obviously hadn’t looked into it. If he did, he’d know I gave him a pretty crappy residence in what looked like an abandoned neighborhood on Google Street View.
“Actually, I was wondering if I could stay and lock up,” I asked, not about to tell this guy I was homeless. He might judge me like he initially had, my new job already gone. I shrugged. “I have some cataloging I wanted to finish, and I don’t mind staying. You don’t even have to pay me for the extra time.”
This might have been laying it on a little thick, but I was desperate here, Ramses’ look curious when he turned with his keys.
Thick eyebrows drew inward. “I don’t know. I mean, that’s not a big deal, but it kinda is. You’ve never done that before, and it’s only been a week since you started here.”
He had no reason to trust me really. I hadn’t given him any reason at all except the week I had spent here working with him.
He came forward with his keys. “If you think you can handle it?”
If the alternative was him trying to get me home… yeah, I could handle it. I didn’t want to lose my job if he didn’t like that I had no place to go. “Yeah. Totally can. Give me a chance?”
I put my lip out for emphasis, and rolling his eyes, he eventually gave me keys. They felt heavy in my hands, but good. I wanted him to trust me. I could do this.
“I’m letting Myron know you’re down here, though,” he said, eyeing me. “I’m gonna text him after I leave, and make sure you follow the checklist he has for close up. He hates when you, well, anyone veers off it.”
I saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
He smirked, his chuckle light as he zipped up his coat. I intended to make him laugh, so I guess mission accomplished. He pointed at me. “I’m putting faith in you. My rep’s on the line here.”
Him saying that made my smile fade for some reason. It reminded me of someone else, someone in another life and time who’d also put their neck out for me. According to him, it’d been repeatedly.
According to me it’d been repeatedly too.
It didn’t make up for how things ended, though, and swallowing, I nodded at Ramses. He grabbed his bag, sliding it over his chest. “Night, December.”
“Night.”
Backing away, he turned over the “Open” sign, the door chiming when he went out. He waited for me to lock it before he left, and I peeked through the blinds to watch him head over to a more than nice ride. Parked across the street, the sleek Mercedes could turn anyone’s head and definitely wasn’t the typical college student’s car. If anything, someone in Maywood Heights would be driving something like that at his age.
He must be loaded too. Everyone else in that town was.
Flicking the blinds, I put my hands on my hips. I actually had no cataloging to do, just wanted to kill some time and get Ramses off me for a second. He could be terribly nosy, but things with us had gotten better in the last week, easier. Still figuring I had to prove myself, I decided to clean up around the library for as long as I could before doing Myron’s checklist. This didn’t take a whole lot of time, as Ramses was meticulous about cleaning too, and after shaking my head at him for that, I called it an evening. I found my bag in the store room, the place I usually kept it during a shift. I tried to keep it out of eyesight for the most part, since it was cumbersome and not the typical-sized bag a girl would carry. Ramses had seen it before, but I made sure not beyond that day I asked about the library needing help.
Taking it, I ventured over to the children’s section. They had a lot of pillows in there for the kids, and I used them, tossing my bag down. I pushed it all together and made a little lying area for myself, setting my phone timer before folding my arms over my chest and closing my eyes. I’d only sleep for a couple hours, max. Myron would most likely be down here to check on things eventually, check that I’d made it out okay and locked up, and anyway, I wasn’t trying to take advantage of the situation or the fact Ramses put trust in me to close. I’d leave here tonight, make sure everything was good, and then, I’d head back to where I was supposed to be, under the bridge my sleeping place tonight. I was grateful for the job I’d gotten and those who’d given it to me, truly…
I just wanted some sleep behind a locked door for once.
Twelve
December
A few days later, I scrolled through social media at a local park for what felt like the first time in forever, and it sorta had been, I guess. I’d had computer access, but when I did, I wasn’t looking into my past and what the world was doing without me.
It seemed they were doing just fine.
My applications showed me people were doing pretty hella frickin’ awesome: Birdie, Kiki, and the others at games and taking selfies at the mall. I saw people smiling and getting on just cool without me, the new girl with a dead sister. Even my aunt had posted a few things during her rounds at the hospital, people clearly forcing her into hugs, but she’d participated.
Christ.
My heart stopped, literally stopped, at seeing Royal Prinze. It’d been awhile. It hadn’t been long enough, and that breath had nowhere to go when I saw him with friends, one in particular.
He had his arm around… Mira, the bitch Mira, at some kind of party. She had a drink in her hand, they both did, and though it could have meant nothing, it had before. It probably did. She’d come to my sister’s reception. They both had pretty much been together then, and only after he left her had he found me.
Is that why he didn’t come with me?
I wouldn’t let my thoughts go there. I truly couldn’t let my thoughts go down that road because if I did, there’d be no coming back. No, my sister’s best friend hadn’t ditched her memorial service to cater to Mira, and no, he hadn’t abandoned me to be with her too. I refused
to believe it.
I studied the photo again, the boy too beautiful for his own goddamn good. He was still completely gorgeous, willowy blond locks he had styled and feathered and a body so thick and hard I could still feel it pressed against my skin. I could still feel him, deep and full within me. He didn’t look like he was sad or even grieving. He looked like he was moving on, and he’d done so clearly without me.
I removed myself from his friend list and follower accounts, blocking him wherever I could, and got so into it I scared myself. I came at this task with a vengeance, my insides burning and raw.
“December?”
Jumping, I gazed up, my eyes widening at the sight of Ramses… with friends. Well, not that he had friends per se, but because of what they all wore.
Uniforms. Like legit academy uniforms donned him and the two friends he’d brought at his sides. They looked like Royal… Royal and Court. Especially Ramses as he had a tie loosened over a pearl white dress shirt, his eyes equally wide on me.
My lips parted. “Um, hi.”
“Hey.” Ramses pushed two long fingers behind his neck, scratching aimlessly. Clearly caught, he stood there with the rest of his uniformed brethren. The boy had told me he was in college, but those outfits were anything but, the colors of green and flame yellow making its way through the whole thing from the ties to the crests on their jackets. They also had cups of ice cream in their hands, the spoon in the mouth of the guy on the right and the one on the left exchanging a glance between Ramses and me. Ramses stopped eating his period, blinking out of whatever daze he’d been in to face his friends. “Guys, this is December,” he said, clearly forgetting himself. “We work together at the library.”
We exchanged our customary “hey there” and “hello,” but after I’d fallen out of the stupor I’d been in, I put my phone away and stood from the bench. I eyed Ramses. “You told me you were in college.”
He started to speak, but stopped. He cleared this throat. “Eh, uh. You told me the same.”