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Durham Library, 4th floor study room, 10 PM.
Felix shook his head slowly. “Nah.”
“Well …” I sucked in a breath as I quickly swiped up on the screen—still no texts from Pierre. “I figured I should see what it’s all about. Thought maybe Vivian had something to do with it.”
With a shrug, Felix replied, “As long as you feel safe.”
I looked at him, trying to listen between the lines of what he just said. Yeah, it was pretty straight forward—but I just didn’t understand what exactly was going through his head. Did he know something that I didn’t? Maybe he was lying. Maybe he did know who that text was from. Maybe he was the one sent it.
Shaking my head, I pressed the elevator button.
It didn’t matter whether not he knew something. It was my call to have come here in the first place, so if something happened, then I was the only one I could blame. I asked Felix to come with me, after all. And Pierre was MIA.
The elevator dinged, and just as we were about to step inside, the kid at the front desk called out to us, “We’re closing in twenty minutes, just so you know.”
Felix threw up a hand in acknowledgement and a moment later, the doors were closing behind us. Thankfully, we were the only ones in the car. I pressed the button to bring us to the fourth floor.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” Felix said a couple seconds after the car started lifting us up. It was a bit unexpected, and just as I was going to respond with an obvious yes, the doors opened.
The fourth floor was already dark, as if the security had finished making their sweep of the level and figured no one else was coming up for the night. The overhead lights were all out, except for one in the center of the ceiling. It cast a dim yellow glow around the metal bookshelves, and turned the blue carpeting a dark green.
“This is kinda creepy,” Felix murmured as we shuffled out of the elevator. I nodded in agreement, squinting to try and find clues as to whether something was happening here, if anyone was around. So far, quiet. Empty.
Just us.
“We’re early,” was all I said in return, and started toward the shelves. “Let’s wait.”
Felix followed me. I continued walking through the two tall shelves that led to where the single stream of light fell, running my hand along the plastic-covered volumes and the gaps between them. Once we were beneath the light, I paused, and turned to face Felix.
He was looking around at the books, inspecting them, almost—like he was interested in reading. Honestly, it would’ve surprised me if that was the case. He never struck me as the type to have anything to do with books unless a class forced him to.
He plucked one off the shelf, a thin copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. My jaw almost dropped right then and there.
Felix must’ve noticed my expression out of the corner of his eye, because he turned to me with a smirk as he flipped through the pages.
“You’ve read that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“You haven’t?” was his response, a little cockier than I expected. Still, he was joking, as he kept on the smirk and slid the book back into its place. “Seriously, though. I used to be super into physics in middle school.”
I let out a snort, but immediately regretted it. There was no laughter in return—just a faint grin. He was being serious.
“Wow,” was all I could muster. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Felix leaned back against the shelf. “I wasn’t smart enough for it. Still not. But it’s interesting shit, if you have the patience for it.”
“Still?”
He turned his head to gaze at me, waiting for clarification.
“You said, still not?” I repeated. “You don’t think you’re smart enough to do physics?”
It had never occurred to me to ask him what he was studying in school. Guess I figured that, whatever it was, it wouldn’t have mattered enough to him anyway. In high school, the three of them, Elliot and Leo included, always acted too cool for school. Sure, they were intelligent. But they didn’t seem interested in using their intelligence.
“Anyone can do it,” Felix answered. “But I wasn’t planning on it as a career choice.”
“What are you planning on?”
A moment passed, and Felix let out a sigh, as if the answer wasn’t worth his breath. “Same thing as my dad.”
