Page 61 of Past Present Future

With high domed ceilings and chandeliers, long wooden tables, spiral staircases, sky-high shelves of books, it really is the platonic ideal of a library.

“I should start studying in here,” I say as we wander down an aisle marked with a bust of Alexander Hamilton. “Maybe that would finally jog my writer’s block.”

“The words still aren’t flowing?”

Shit. There goes keeping it in. “I mean, I’m writing, but am I writing anything good? Who’s to say.” A sharp laugh slips out before I can stop it. “Actually, I can say, and I’m not. Writing anything good, that is. But we really don’t have to talk about it on your birthday!”

He must be able to sense my anxiety in those words, because he frowns, auburn brows pinching together. “Why wouldn’t we talk about it? It doesn’t matter what day it is—I always want to know what’s going on with you.”

I close my eyes for a moment, wishing I hadn’t brought it up. But he has a point, and ever since the email landed in my inbox, that’s all I’ve wanted. His reassurance, sure, but more than that—I’ve never been able to talk about writing the way I do with him. Even if our tastes are different, he was the first person I told about my romance novel, and he’s only ever seemed awed by it.

“I guess we are good communicators now, huh.” A flicker of something I can’t quite interpret passes over his face, so brief that I’m certain I imagined it. “My professor emailed after my last assignment saying she wanted to talk to me after class, and I just… haven’t?” I reach for my phone, showing him the message. “I told her I had to meet with my adviser and then that I had a doctor’s appointment, and now I’m not sure what to do when I see her next. I’m running out of excuses.”

Two girls in matching winter coats start to turn down our aisle, but then, sensing we’re having a moment, head for the opposite one instead.

Neil’s hand lands on my back, making a slow trail from one shoulder blade to the other. “Why are you afraid of seeing your professor?” he asks gently.

The possibilities run through my head. Because she’s going to tell me I’m not good enough. That I’m a fraud. Because she’s going to kick me out of the class.

None of them are realistic, of course, but that doesn’t make me any less convinced one of them is going to happen.

“I guess… I’ve just kind of lived in this bubble where I write something, and then she gives me feedback, and none of it’s spoken aloud. Once we start talking about it, that means I have to acknowledge what’s going on. That I can’t fucking write.” I take a few steps forward, shaking my head as tears threaten behind my eyes. I will not allow myself to cry on my boyfriend’s birthday, not inside this beautiful library. “Am I fooling myself, thinking I can turn this into a career someday when I can’t even turn in an assignment I don’t hate? And the one time I managed to—that’s the time she decides she needs to talk to me? Because I feel like such a failure. Or maybe I shouldn’t even be thinking that far ahead if I’m struggling this much in an intro class. Like, I’m already at the lowest level. I can’t go backward from here. I don’t know where I’d even go—”

I break off, pressing a hand to my heart as my breaths come out in sharp bursts. Even when I’m trying to be quiet, the library only amplifies the sound, creating a dull echo.

“I don’t know who I am without writing,” I say in a small voice. “And I don’t know what to do if it turns out that I’m not very good at it.”

“Hey,” he says, the single word more soothing than it has any right to be. His arms come around my shoulders, and he holds me tight to his chest in this aisle of antique books. “Hey. Artoo. This one class doesn’t determine your future.” A soft brush of his fingers through my hair. “And you are a good writer. Maybe you’re going through a rough patch, but you don’t just lose that overnight. You are a fantastic. Fucking. Writer.”

I want so badly to believe him. “You’re biased,” I whisper instead. “You’re sleeping with me.”

“And I’ve known you were talented since long before that. And”—he lowers his voice, speaks right against my ear—“now I have the privilege of saying that your talent extends to other arenas, too.” His attempt at humor has its intended effect: I feel my cheeks heat as I reach for the lapels of his peacoat to keep him close. “Do you remember what you told me in June? When we were in a library significantly less grandiose than this one?”

“First of all, what a dig at the Westview High School library,” I say, sniffing. “Second… vaguely?”

“That as soon as you told people you were a writer, you thought you’d have something to prove. That writing made you feel lonely. But then you told me. You showed me your words, and you read them on a stage in front of one of your literary idols. You have come so fucking far.” He pulls my shoulders back so we can face each other, his eyes both serious and sweet behind his glasses. “You’re not a failure—you’re just still figuring it all out. You’re turning your brain inside out for other people to see, and that takes a wild amount of bravery.”

Now I’m crying for an entirely different reason. “Why can’t I be anywhere near as nice to myself as you are?”

This makes him laugh as he hugs me again, his familiar warmth and earthy scent, a comfort I’m not sure I could describe in words even if I had an entire year to put them on paper.

It makes me feel even worse about the one part of my anxiety that I haven’t mentioned.

The fear that because I’m in love, I can’t write about it.

I’m not sure I could tell him that.

“Why are libraries basically like therapy for us?” I say, swiping under my eyes for mascara stains. Because this is far from the first heart-to-heart we’ve had inside one. “This place could get us to tell her all our secrets if she really wanted to.”

“Maybe there’s something to that. So many people have sought comfort here, so many stories and worlds contained in this single building. It’s hard to conceptualize the amount of imagination in this space. Letters that were meant to reach people but never did… portraits made by artists who revered their subjects, or hated their subjects, or were in love with their subjects and only able to express their emotion through paint. All those centuries of heartbreak and hope.”

“I love that you love words just as much as I do, because that’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.”

For some reason, this makes his expression go flat. He’s a fidgeter when he’s nervous, and when he starts tugging at the sleeves of his coat, jamming his hands in his pockets only to draw them right back out again, I can tell he’s unsettled. No longer quite at ease.

“Neil? Something on your mind?”

“Actually… yes. There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you. Needing to tell you.”

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