Bookish and the Beast - Ashley Poston Page 0,77

hundreds of books. I can never look up the expanse of stairs to the second floor. I can never see Vance at the top of them again. I can never pet Sansa again. I can never read The Starless Throne while lounging on a pool chair in the backyard, or read it to him, or have him read Sond’s lines in that distinctly silky voice.

I can never, never, never again.

One moment it was all there, at the tip of my fingertips, part of my life in a way nothing has ever been before, and the next—gone.

All of it, gone.

I hug my pillow to my chest and try to keep the well of sadness inside me, but I can’t. This doesn’t hurt as much as losing Mom. Nothing will ever hurt that much, but it hurts all the same. Tears spill down my cheeks, and I bury my head into my pillow.

You knew it wouldn’t last, I think. It should’ve never happened to begin with.

A part of me wishes I could go back to who I was before the library, before the rainstorm, before the kiss, before all of it. I wish I could dig up the starstruck love I had for that boy in that midnight mask, when the world was simple and straightforward. I was happier with the stranger in my head, instead of Vance. Because knowing the real one stings too much. Knowing that he could have been someone different, that for a moment he seemed like he wanted to be someone better.

I would much rather have been in love with the phantom in my head.

Afternoon light spills into the room, and it reminds me of all the afternoons I spent in that library, sunlight falling through the windows, shining off the dust particles in the air like flecks of stars. Dad won’t be home for another few hours, and I don’t have leftover food to heat up that Elias gave me, and I don’t have a book I snuck out of the library to read underneath my covers.

I just have me.

As I roll over in my bed again, I hear a strange sound. It’s music, blasting from—from the parking lot? No, not just music…

“LOOK TO THE STARS! LOOK TO THE STARS AND SEE! FIND OUT WHERE YOU BELONG! AND FIGHT FOR IT, FIGHT FOR IT, FIGHT FOR LOVE IN A STARFIELD, A STARFIELD, A STARFIELD OF LIGHT.”

…The theme song to Starfield?

I sit up and hesitantly approach my window. Other people are coming out onto their balconies and peeking out of their apartments toward the blaring music in the lot beneath us. And there Quinn and Annie stand with a boom box pointed at my apartment.

I quickly abandon my window and head for the door, stumbling into my shoes as I leave the apartment, and come up to the railing on the side. I try to push away the tears flooding my eyes, but I can’t seem to, and the next I know they’ve abandoned the boom box and both of them are wrapping their arms around me.

So tightly, I’m not scared of rattling apart anymore. I come undone in their arms, and I know they’ll be there to keep me in one piece.

THE LIBRARY IS EMPTY WITHOUT HER.

I should feel angry, but I don’t. I just feel…hollow.

Our bags are packed. We’re just waiting for the car now. Everything else in this house—the smaller things, the TV, the gaming console, Elias’s cooking supplies—will be boxed up by a moving company and shipped back to LA within the next few days.

My fingers find the part of the bookshelf where The Starless Throne should be, but I know Rosie still has it with her.

We all occupy space for such a short period of time, even though sometimes it feels like eternity. We’re here, and then gone, and our stuff stays behind. The things that we used, the things that we loved, the things that we treasured, and adored, and despised. Those trinkets exist far longer than we do, and I’ve always imagined them as that—just things. To be bought, sold, gathered.

But things, it seems, can persevere. Small things. Treasured things. A favorite book, an old battered album, a DVD of an old sci-fi TV series passed from father to daughter. They can cast a spell to ensure that people you’ve never met will miss you when you’re gone.

I’ve never met Rosie’s mother, but when I run my fingers along the spines of her collection, I miss her.

And…and I still have