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“Thanks for… for trying to get our parents off my ass,” I say, distracted.
“Well, I failed, so… pick a pack, Sawyer. It will be good for you.”
“You just want me off your hands,” I mutter, but he’s already gone.
Right.
Get back on track, I tell myself. Nobody wants a burden of a son or brother. Get your fucking ducks in a row. Don’t let yourself get trapped inside your mind again. Work, go to the library for the group reading. Go to the gym! Exercise helps. Meet Casey. Or Bee and her pack. Or Gigi and her pack.
God, everyone around me has a pack already.
Not everyone. Stop going to extremes. Eric was right, you get too deep inside your head. Get out of that hole.
And stop… stop counting, I tell myself, even as I count how many times I wipe the counter down, how many steps I take around the bar, how many cups I place to dry in a row. Magical numbers, consistent numbers. I like five. It’s my number. I like to repeat it.
I need to repeat it.
No. The world won’t end if you stop. Your life won’t end.
But it feels like it. Like a spell, like some sort of magic that will keep my life from going tits-up.
I need to get out of here.
So I close the café. I don’t even call Bee to hold the fort this time. I turn off the lights and just shut it down, put the Closed sign on the door.
I might be going crazy. I need to control that. After all, what pack would want a crazy person?
Walking to the library will take me forty minutes or so. It’s good for my mind, or so I hope. But I keep jumping at sudden noises, people brushing me by.
Fuck.
One more pack to meet, and then make my choice. That was what my parents said in the voicemail. I have one week to do both.
So I will avoid the thought, the demand placed on me, and escape the only way I know how: in stories.
I’m not in charge of the book club today, thank fuck, so I just sit at the table with the other members. Staying with the books, in the rows of shelves, might have been better, in retrospect, but the book club felt like routine. Like something safe.
And maybe I had hoped Brinlee would come, okay? Fuck, I’ll admit it. But there is no sign of her throughout the meeting, and honestly, I can’t remember what book we were supposed to be talking about. I just sat there until it was over, and then left the room.
I think someone calls my name, but these people, no matter how nice, are not the ones I need to be with.
This was a mistake, after all.
Or… not? As I head for the exit, I spot a girl in a long purple skirt and a light blue hoodie, the hood pulled over her head, heading inside.
I stop in my tracks, because…
Is it her? It’s her!
“Brinlee!” The doll is gone, my bookish girl is back, and something in my chest aches. “Brin!”
She turns her head and I catch a glimpse of those big eyes, wide and dark. It is her, I was right. A smile is spreading over my face, hope making my heart thud, my lungs expanding.
I take a step toward her.
But she shakes her head and turns away, hurrying toward the information desk and past it, entering the library proper. The forest of books.
Like Little Red Riding Hood, disappearing among the dark trees.
