Page 36 of Unregrettable

We’re talking quietly enough but we must have made enough noise to earn someone’s attention because the door to the library suddenly swings open and the overhead lights click on.

I yank Crina’s hand and drag her down to the ground. Three rows of tables and chairs cover us. Through the latticework of table and chair legs, I see a black trousers and a pair of solid, brown shoes with little scuffs on the tops.

Security guard.

We’re no longer tucked away safely in the stacks but exposed in the central area of the library. If he makes a sweep of the room, we’re royally screwed. Crouching down as low as she can, Crina glances at me, eyes wide with fear. Worse than the gossip that will blaze through the school about getting caught in the library together, her mother will go ballistic. Sure, we’re married, but no one knows that. She’ll put Crina on lockdown from now to kingdom come.

The guard makes his way down one end of the library, peering between the bookshelves to our left. He comes back out—I’m tracking his movements from between the table legs and chairs—and searches another row of books. I consider moving, but the library is dead silent. It’s too risky. I briefly consider killing him but dismiss the idea. A man’s life for doing his job seems a tad extreme.

I squeeze Crina’s hand to reassure her that I will handle this as the guard comes out of the second aisle of books. The next aisle is where we left our backpacks. Once he finds those, it’s game over. I slow down my breathing, focusing on the draw out inhales and exhales as I brace myself for the worst. And just as his shoes pivot toward the next aisle, his two-way radio at his hip crackles.

He pauses and grabs the radio. “Yeah, boss?” There’s crackling speech I can’t make out and then he responds, “I’m in the library. Thought I heard voices.” Another flurry of crackling nonsense, but I did catch something about the basement. “Yeah, okay. Be right there.”

My shoulders droop in relief as he ambles toward the library entrance, turns the lights off, and locks the door behind him. We remain frozen in place until the automatic hallway lights click off, signaling that there’s no one on the floor.

I let out a sigh, but the instant we’re plunged back into the welcome darkness, Crina hisses, “No way we’re having sex here. No. Way.”

Yeah, our location has been compromised. Between her nerves and the possibility that the guard could return to check on his hunch, she’s right.

I stand and stretch out my hand. “Come on, baby, let’s get our backpacks and go home.”

As I push the bar of the side exit, I murmur near the curve of her ear, “You’ve gotten away tonight, but don’t think I’m going to wait much longer.”

Despite my worry over the fact that she’s not fully mine, I’d much rather fuck her under the night stars on the roof than in the library any day.

CHAPTER10

CRINA

My mother grabs a snow globe from my bookcase, the one I got in Aspen on a ski vacation I took with Marku and his family. If I recall correctly, I couldn’t have been more than eight years old. That’s at least how long I’ve been collecting them.

I grind down on my molars. Is she trying to test me? She may not know what happened this morning, but she’s testing my patience like never before. The snow globe in her hand happens to be one of my favorites from the collection on my shelves. It’s the only snow globe I have that’s all trees. No snowmen. No buildings. No silly miniature humans. Just trees.

Maybe my love for snow globes came from the simple beauty of them, just like one’s love for fairy-tale happily ever afters. So different from my childhood, where I’d learned that you were loved for what you could do, not for who you were.

Unconditional love wasn’t a thing for my mother. How that came about, I have no idea. My father loves her beyond reason. Natalia loves her like a sister. No, more than a sister. Sisters argue and fight, or so I’ve heard, but they’ve never exchanged so much as a cross word. Despite the people devoted to her, she taught me early on that her love was dependent on what I did.

Perfect adherence to social rules was paramount. That was one of the reasons the spectacle with Marku in the soccer team locker room had been so damaging. Marku was one of the only people who’d loved me without reservation, but when I’d unwittingly crossed a social boundary and been rejected publicly for it, something broke inside me. Not only was it a shock, but I’d felt doubly betrayed because he’d done exactly what Mama had always done.

Maybe another girl could have gotten over it. But me? Me, I held and nursed the grudge of the century.

Mama leans against the bookshelf, peering over my shoulder as she handles the snow globe, leaving her prints all over the glass. “Not poetry again.”

I tense my shoulders and squeeze my eyes to keep from responding. My eyes flash open and I focus on the wall, seeking to shut her out. Her and her grating voice. The wall is decorated with posters of poems and a bulletin board covered with postcards of brilliant poets.

Yes, it’s poetry. It’s been poetry for years and you damn well know it.

If only she knew that I’d applied to as many writing programs as I could in colleges around the city, even if my heart is holding out for Cooper Union. A lead weight settles in my chest.

Thanks for reminding me about the acceptance letter I’m waiting on.

Between sneaking into the house, past her watchful eye after Marku drove me straight to my front door, and the fact that my nerves are flying high after this morning, I can’t risk opening my mouth.

I’m still processing. How am I supposed to do that properly with her barging into my private space and asking me asinine questions? More importantly, how do I deal with discovering that my perfectionist mother has the largest stain on her pristine reputation that any mother can have? And what about her conscience? Or the fact that she had chosen the worst kind of man to have an affair with. He’s not just scary. He’s scary with an edge of cruelness that hovers right below the surface. It will take years of therapy to get over this.

“So much writing, and for what? You’re married now. You’ll have children soon.”

My fingers fist my favorite marron Mont Blanc fountain pen. She does this to goad me into losing my temper and revealing my feelings. I cannot engage.

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