feel free to read this chapter while listening to the song below <3
/A WEEK LATER,
these faded bookshelves feel like home. like sipping on chilly november afternoons (like this one) with blue gray wind slipping through the cracks of the misted windows and colouring away my sanity and replacing it with gray watercolor dreams. they smell of something archaic, something warm, like autumn or 11:11, or both. these books feel like spring, like acrylic paints smeared over scribbled hearts and sketched collisions. acrylic paints shades of poetry, shades of adventure, shades of courage. these bookshelves feel like home.
i walk through the maze of bookshelves in the library to find the table i usually sit at, the one by the window overlooking the schoolyard, and the streets with the cars flashing by.
i turn a corner and that's when i collide into someone. and then the sketchbooks and pens in my arms are falling and raining over the floor, a flurry of colors, disoriented scribbles pages flapping like wings crashing into the floor like a sketched collision, just like that day-
my knees are raw from when i landed. i look up, into a mixture of green and gold, like dots of sunlight through densely gathered leaves. eyes that hold laugher, and a lonely darkness underneath the surface. a gasp escapes me and my heartbeat all of a sudden sounds like waves pounding against the shore. your name repeats in my head over and over again until it becomes a rhythm in my head.
auburn. auburn. auburn. auburn. auburn.
it's been a week since i last saw you.
you lean down, kneeling to gather the scattered papers, bunching the pens in one pile. your eyes scan the scribbled sketches. like last time. last time. the first time we ever spoke.
"where've you been?" i ask you, as i pick up the scattered brushes and markers with you.
you smile at me. it's a nice smile, a true smile. it doesn't reach your eyes.
"i've been gone," you reply casually. there's a lingering darkness beneath the surface of your words, telling me to not further mention it. i don't.
we stand, and you hand over my sketchbooks and pens.
"thank you,"
together we walk to the table.
🌙
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