Only You

the library

The library is almost empty; I would have thought I was completely alone in it if it weren't for the occasional cough or the sound of paper turning or the quiet clicking of a keyboard somewhere beyond the bookshelves. 

This is the only place in school that I really like being in. The library's always open until nine o'clock, since our librarians work in shifts. I like watching it empty out until you would only be able to tell if someone is out there by calling out and asking. And the setting sun always spills its sleepy color in through the windows, bathing the place in shadows of rose and fire. 

I am sitting at one of the tables in the back, trying to do my math homework but really watching the noble moon begin her ascent in the bruising sky. She climbs steadily above the rooftops, using the estranged  clouds as her footstools. A regal queen, dressed in all the pink and orange splendor of her robes. 

Someone moves through the aisles nearby. When I look to see who it is, my breath catches in my throat and my heart stumbles over itself. 

Ms. Blanchett has her back to me, observing a book. I watch the elegant curve of her neck, the way her head seems to be crowned with the light of a million crimson petals and flakes of bronze. She looks even more beautiful in the dying sun than she did in the dead of night, or in the starkness of morning. I watch, mesmerized, as she turns around to place the book back on the shelf. As she chooses another one, her gaze wanders to my direction. Our eyes meet, and she smiles.

I smile back, for the first time ever, I think. I am at peace with the world tonight. The sunset is a blushing goddess in golden robes and we are all being held in her arms. 

"I haven't seen you around in a while," Ms. Blanchett says, walking over. She sits down next to me, and my eyes fall to her graceful hands, the pale long fingers that fold over each other delicately. 

"I've been...busy."

"Too busy with your math work to turn in your English, I see." 

I close my textbook. "Well, I did do the homework."

"So why not make it official by handing it in? The deadline was over a week ago. But I can give you an extension, if you like."

I look at her skin like a cream colored pearl. I look at her crystal blue eyes, her lips like the petals of an exquisite unnamed flower, and feel a wild desire for something I knew would give me the few seconds of paradise before tearing me apart. I want her to carve me like a marble statue from the Renaissance. I want to be the clay in her hands, I want her to mold and smooth me into another person.  

I look at her, and think that if she said "Jude, I'm taking you away from this place forever", I would have followed her without hesitation. 

But instead I merely tap the cover of her book. "New unit?"

She smiles, almost bashfully. But maybe I only imagined it. "Actually, it's just for personal reading." She shows me the title: Mrs. Dalloway. "Have you read it before?"

"Yes," I say, "but it's been a while, I don't remember much of it."

"You must read a lot."

"Oh, I used to."

"Not anymore?"

"No, not since..." I stop, but not because I don't want to tell her. I stop because I'm afraid she'll think I'm just asking for her pity. I don't ever want to look like I need anyone's sympathy, least of all from her.

But Ms. Blanchett waits. And because she waits, because her calm blue eyes watch mine, I know that somehow she already knows what I'm going to say, and now I have to say it. 

"Well, since my sister got arrested." I'm pleased to hear my voice remain flat and emotionless. "After that I kind of decided I'd had enough...insanity without the help of literature." I shrug, and even laugh a little. 

Ms. Blanchett nods slowly. "I see. I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"Why?"

"I mean...she didn't commit a murder or a theft or anything. But it's not like she didn't deserve it." My voice is getting weaker, and I hate myself. I've never spoken about this to anyone before. And now, sitting in the pool of the sunset rays with the most beautiful woman in the world, unraveling under her gaze, I realize there had been a good reason for it. 

"Tell me about her. What's her name?"

I fiddle with the strap of my notebook, until Ms. Blanchett's hand covers mine and I forget how to think for a moment. "Her name is Arden. She's well, she's Arden. A bit taller than me. And she's gorgeous. Prettier than me, by far. She's also older than me, by two years."

"Okay," Ms. Blanchett cuts in quietly, "try again, but without saying 'than me'."

"Okay," I say, laughing, but in truth I have no idea how else to describe her. Arden is me, only better. She's taller, thinner. Older, prettier, smarter. All I am is a watered-down version of her. 

But I'd worshiped her as a child, and trusted her when we grew older. She and I hardly ever fought, and if we did we'd make up before the day was out. She was who I told everything to, things I couldn't even bring myself to write down, for fear of discovery. She was the first and only person I came out as bisexual to. Not even my parents know to this day. 

"She listened," I say. "Really listened. Most people only pretend to listen, because they're so busy thinking about what they're about to say. But Arden would sit there and look at you and listen really intently until you were done."

I don't say she made the same expression Ms. Blanchett is making right now, the serious set of her mouth, the crease in her eyebrow. I don't say how it felt like a betrayal to me when she got arrested, because Arden was the one thing in the world I believed was untouched by the ugliness of life, and by getting arrested it showed me in a way that she had been one of them all along. 

I look at my knuckles and clench my fists so that the pale jagged scars stand out. I'd punched and punched the walls of my room the night she was put in jail. I became a heathen. Arden had called and asked to see me multiple times. I never went.

"Shit, sorry." I wipe angrily at my eyes. Pressing my fist to my lips, I stare unseeingly at the darkening sky outside. Ms. Blanchett brushes my hair away from my face. The touch of her cool fingers against my burning skin calms me.

"I didn't mean to cry," I say lamely. "I guess I look like a wreck."

"We're all wrecks, one way or another," Ms. Blanchett answers. "But for what it's worth, you look beautiful. You always do."

She stands up, and before I know what I'm doing I take hold of her hand, a desperate plea for her to stay. She smiles softly, then leans down and kisses the top of my forehead, so lightly I barely feel it. Then she walks away.