“I will.”
His gaze lingered for a second—the same look he used to give me when I was a kid standing in his driveway with scraped knees.
Then he turned, giving me one last smile over his shoulder before disappearing out the front door with the sharp chime of the bell.
I stayed there a beat longer, the flattened sugar packet stuck to the damp of my palm.
I should call her.
13
HENRY
Late afternoon had already started to settle, dragging gold through the high windows and letting it fall in narrow, uneven strips across the library tables. It found him first, catching on the line of his wrist where it rested against a page, threading through his hair and resting along the slope of his shoulders, circling him in something soft.
A private kind of illumination.
Mine.
He was folded into the table like he’d been there for hours. Books spread out in uneven stacks—open, half-closed, and abandoned mid-thought. His glasses balanced precariously on the bridge of his nose, riding too low to be used, but he read over them anyway.
Gray eyes moved too fast, then slowed, then stopped entirely when something snagged his attention.
A pen hovered between his teeth, and he bit down without realizing it.
The cords in his neck tightened, visible with the movement as he leaned closer to the page until the tip of his nose brushed the paper.
He inhaled.
Something hot took hold beneath my ribs.
God.
He didn’t belong in rooms like this. Not this unaware of what he did to the space around him.
Tome.
Archibald disappeared when he focused. I’d seen it before. The rest of him fell away piece by piece until only the work remained.
The library seemed to breathe around it.
Shelves rose higher the further back you went, dark wood worn smooth at the edges, packed tight with texts no one bothered to touch anymore.
Real ones.
Bound in cloth and leather, titles pressed into their spines instead of printed across glossy covers.
Cool, dense air shifted through old vents, carrying the faint trace of paper and polish.
Students never ventured this far back.
They formed clusters around what was easy, laptops open and headphones in, living firmly in spaces where everything could be searched, skimmed, and closed without consequence.
This space required more than any of them had the patience for.
Not my Rabbit.
He chose a desk that was meant for someone who took up more space than he ever allowed himself. Unforgiving wood stretched past him on all sides, but he carved out a little corner, contained to the span of his arms.