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( December 1978 )
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SHE WAS IN THE LIBRARY THE DAY HER FATE WAS SEALED. Her head was ducked low while her neck ached from being in the position for so long. Her shoulders hunched over while her spine formed an uncomfortable curve over the desk she had her paper and schoolbooks sprawled out on. Eyebrows furrowed in concentration, the pile of a handwritten story increased like the stain of ink she was creating on her left hand.
Then he entered the room, tie loose and eyes droopy while he searched the shelves for a book he could find interesting. None of them were good enough to tend to his boredom. Not until he saw her. She herself was a closed book waiting for someone to attempt to read her just so she could snap closed and keep them away.
He studied her closely, ink on her cheek, furious hand moving across the page below her, soft eyes that seemed angry at whatever it was that she was writing, and a pack of cigarettes poorly hidden under a few papers. She fascinated him more than any old book ever could.
Building up the courage he had in his mouse-like figure, he stepped over to her table.
She barely even bat an eye in his direction.
He still kept his eyes on her with his hands in his pockets, he thought she looked even more celestial up close. Eyelashes that created shadows over her eyes, posture that seemed extremely painful but one wrong move and her thought process was finished for the day, he was infatuated with her and she hadn't even spoken a word to him.
"Do you need something?"
He jumped. Her voice was like silk in his ears, he already wished to hear her voice forever.
"Hello?"
He blinked, she was now looking directly at him. He wanted to melt in her eyes if it was possible.
He cleared his throat, "can I sit?" he edged a finger at the chair directly in front of her. The pools of chocolate in her eyes stared unamused at his lack of a book.
"To do what exactly? You don't have anything to read," she stated quickly trying to get him to shoo away so she wouldn't forget her last thought. She stared at him examining the features of his figure, he wasn't relatively handsome, he was more along the lines of lovely or charming, maybe even, dare she say, pretty?
His boney hands flitted over a random book on the table and he held it up in the orange light on display for her to see. She squinted her eyes reading the title and as her eyes lay back on his body, her mouth threatened to curl up into a smile but she clenched her jaw to restrict herself.
Pointing the spectacles in her head back to her writing she spoke, "by all means sit, I take you'll enjoy The Feminine Mystique very much." He quickly turned over the book to read the title, The Feminine Mystique was written in canary yellow lettering on the sage cover. The boy only shrugged and sat in the seat in front of her. The girl furrowed her brows at him but let him be, she knew he was trouble, all boys are trouble, she could almost hear her mothers voice preaching those exact words to her, but then she still let the boy stay. He didn't seem harmful of any kind, he seemed intelligent and quick-witted and lovely.
"I'm Peter by the way." His name was perfect for a boy like him. "Peter Pettigrew." She nodded and kept her head down to mask the growing smile that was beginning to hurt her cheeks.
They stayed in their seats for the next hour, eyes never meeting anytime they glanced at each other. Peter read the book, and the girl continued writing no matter how much her hand screamed to stop. Only being halfway through the book, Peter deemed himself done with being in the library, the smell of old books had begun to seep into his brain and mess with his eyesight. He sighed and closed the book beginning to get up to leave.
She didn't want him to leave. As much as she would deny it, she enjoyed his quiet company.
"Olympia."
The thing that made him stop. Her voice carried to his ears once more and he adored it. "You introduced yourself and it only seemed right for me to do the same." She shifted under his gaze, no boy had ever made her squirm like that. She loathed it.
"Olympia." She rather liked the way he said her name. Her heart prickled when the four syllables slipped off his tongue like water. "Pleasure to meet you, Olympia."
"Pleasure to meet you, Peter." His heart ached for her to say his name again, there was an enveloping constraint eating away at his soul, begging him to sit back down and continue speaking with her, but he couldn't seem desperate in front of her. It was embarrassing. But that's precisely what she wanted. The little voice in her mind was pleading her to say something to make him stay but she too didn't want to suggest she was desperate. It was embarrassing.
So she stayed silent. Let him walk away while she shouted in her mind that she was an imbecile for not going after what she wanted like usual. It ate at her agonizingly, yet she remained with her bored expression splattered on her regal features, allowing the boy to leave her just as fast as he came.
The tiny voice in his head shouted at him louder and louder as his legs carried him out of the library, but he didn't turn back. The only thing he could muster up was a quant glance over his shoulder as he reached the grand doors of the library. He meant for it to be quick, he meant for it to be harmless, but when he saw her shamelessly looking directly at him, he knew she would be the end of him.
The celestial eyes in her head bored holes through his while plucking his conscious into a trance. He wanted to be with her, he wanted to know her, inside and out. She had intoxicated him from the moment he set eyes on her.
It was hellish fate for him to be in the library that day, catastrophe was all that could happen because of it.
But that was fate. It was painful and messy and pitiful. Nothing more, nothing less.
