seven

                                        

                                              
FEBRUARY
THE AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT streamed through the windows at the back of the library and warmed the nape of his neck, pleasant heat spilling over his skin like a trailing kiss. While he read, he leaned back in that wooden, cushioned chair, his feet resting on the short carpet of that otherwise dimly lit corner at the back of the school library.
Everything was still in that lonely corner. Sometimes on one of the trees outside a bird chirped or whistled or sang, perched on the black branches that were so stark against the pale blue sky and its white frothy clouds, beams of sunlight shooting between them. Occasionally, when someone emerged around his corner, their feet shuffling and tapping along, he glanced up to see who it was but they never stayed long and he returned to his book, listening to the slow drum of his heart.
February was breezing through him like wind through the leaves but Tuesday, as always, felt like a dull ache, like the throb of an old wound or the kind of headache where tension burst around the temples. Tuesday, long and slow, was always painful and always felt like trudging through a hazy, fuzzy mimic of reality or wading through ten miles of water with heavy clothes on. Every second pierced him, always trying to make itself noticed until it became unbearable, until the night decayed into the birth of a fresh Wednesday.
His friends were having lunch together in the cafeteria and had asked him to meet them, but he had declined the offer with a brief text and disappeared into the rear corner of the library. Since the afternoon before when he had made everything ugly by exposing his empty insides to them, there was even less for them to say.
Sorrow and loathing and regret and rage and loneliness, they could deal with. Uncontrollable bursts of emotion and tears and passive aggressive comments and snapping fury, they could deal with. But how were they to spur him from the absence of emotion? How were they to share in something that he had nothing of? How were they to carry the weight of hollow space?
In their own way, they had tried to assure him, they had tried to dig to the shining cause of the problem but could not find it and when Isaac, the last of them to leave, was standing on the front porch, he looked at Hadley, almost puzzled, and said, You are so far away. When did you get so far away?
But that was yesterday and today was today, and Hadley was trying not to think about it.
Instead, he was trying to occupy himself with his reading and by trying not to look at Spencer, who he could see in the corner of his eye.
From where he was sitting, he could see his profile. He could see the crooked bridge of his nose and its slightly pointed tip, the sweet left side of his slender jaw, the curve of that firm chin and the thoughtful flutters of the eyelashes that looked shorter than he knew they were. He could see the gentle, thoughtful furrow of that light brow and the short waves of light brown hair and the bump of his pink mouth, and he tried not to watch his perusing, the wandering along that one shelf, just in front of where Hadley was sitting, as he scanned the titles of books that were stacked there. 
Hadley had known he was there since he'd first arrived some five minutes ago, but he still wouldn't look directly at him. He still wouldn't allude to any notion that he was even aware of his presence and refused to let his gaze move from the page of his book, trying to remove Spencer's repetitive, lackadaisical movements from his range of focus: he lingered; he ambled; he paused and began again. He chose books, read their blurbs, opened them to random pages and swept his shrewd over the words before closing them and slipping them back into their tight pockets on the shelf.
This wasn't the first time that they'd shared a space in the library, but things were different before his breakup with Elodie. Back then, when he would disappear into those hushed, private areas and needed an escape from the noise of everywhere else, when he needed to bring his brain back down to the right speed, he would sometimes find Spencer already there, searching or reading or studying. Other times, he would be reading at a table or in one of those comfortable chairs at the opposite end of the room, and Spencer would, in his way, wander towards the nearest shelf and begin his browsing.