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All I know for certain right now is if I keep leaning towards him, I am going to end up playing with fire, and standing in the quiet of this room, I can already feel myself starting to burn.
14
Julian
“Thorne.” The librarian looks at me as I hand her the request slip.
“The very one.” I flash her a grin, offering the effortless smile that usually gets me exactly what I want.
I know I am a cocky bastard. I don’t particularly care.
She glances down to the name on the request slip, again, and then back at me. She is clearly unimpressed.
“Professor Mathias put it on hold for you,” she states. “Interpreting Chopin: Analysis and Performance by Alison Hood.”
“Absolutely wonderful.” I let the sarcasm bleed into my tone. I am such an arsehole sometimes. “I cannot wait to spend my weekend reading it.”
Without another word, she disappears into the back shaking her head.
I lean against the counter and look around the library. It is such a tomb. It is actually suffocating and smells of floor wax, old books, and disintegrating manuscript paper. Everywhere I look, there are rows of students bent over theory texts, frantically jotting down notes, totally immersed. I know I’m an eyesore here—half-hungover and completely unenthusiastic.
And fuck, do I love it.
I’m only stuck here because Professor Mathias requested that I read this textbook, claiming it would help me “enhance my informed intuitions through a deeper understanding of Chopin’s expressive strategies.” He really is the most insufferable arsehole.
Like I need a dusty textbook to tell me how to play the piano. So, now I’m wasting perfectly good time waiting for the librarian to find this damn book, so I can get the hell out of here.
“Due back in two weeks, Mr. Thorne.”
She hands me the book, placing it in my hands like it's a sacred text of significant value.
“I’ll treasure it,” I say, giving her a quick wink.
I take the book, find the nearest available chair, and drop into it. I stick my boots out into the aisle, open it to the first page, and begin reading. I make it to the second paragraph before nearly falling asleep, the dry academic prose dragging my eyelids down, and slam it shut.
I know exactly what this is. This is Mathias’s specific brand of petty. He’s careful not to openly scream you’re an arrogant little prick, Thorne, and this is the consequence. Instead, he assigns these tedious tasks and mind numbing little research errands as his way of reminding me that he is the ‘big dog’ here, and I have to fall into line.
I am becoming more irritated with every passing moment in this absolute graveyard. I turn around, ready to bolt for the exit.
That’s when I see her.
She’s tucked away in the deepest corner of stacks, her head down over a desk and buried in a mountain of paper.
She looks frayed. This isn’t the pristine Golden Girl of Belrose and the untouchable Ellise Vance that everyone is used to seeing. Her shoulders are hitched up, her bow is hanging at an angle that would have normally been corrected within thirty seconds of it happening. She is rubbing her temples like someone who has been staring at the same problem for far too long.
I should leave.
I should just take my shitty textbook and go absorb the bare minimum amount of information required in case Mathias decides to question me on it, but for some reason my feet cannot seem to move towards the exit.
I roll out of the chair, slower than I normally would. I really should leave, but I take a step towards her instead. Then another.
My feet have apparently made a decision that my brain was not consulted on. She is still bowed over the desk, completely lost in whatever she is doing as I begin walking towards her.
What the hell are you playing at? I think. But I keep walking anyway.
My boots make a distinct thud against the wooden floorboards, a sound that feels too loud in the quiet of the library. Not that I care enough to try to quieten my steps. My fingers trail along the spines of the books as I pass, until I end up directly behind her chair.
She hasn’t moved since I spotted her. She hasn’t looked up once.
