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“You didn’t like me when I first came here?”
“Of course I didn’t dislike you. But I didn’t really think about you. When you were younger, you never really crossed my mind. When I thought about you, I recognized you were pretty and clever and softhearted, and I wished you weren’t under the thumb of your dad, but you didn’t matter that much to me.”
I can see he’s slightly stiff, like he’s worried this admission will upset me.
I lean over to kiss his jaw. “I’d much rather hear that than you perving on me when I was like eighteen.”
He relaxes and wraps his arms around me. “It wasn’t like that at all. Even when you arrived, I felt bad for you, but I didn’t... I didn’t expect you to mean so much to me. It came on me slowly. The first time I had an inkling there was more to my feelings was that night when we got hot chocolate in the library. And you...”
I reach up and thumb his upper lip, the way I did back then.
“You remember?”
“Of course I remember. That’s probably the first time I started thinking about you differently too.”
He smiles, and so do I. We likely would have said more, but Stella taps on the library door, which we wisely kept closed, and tells Arthur there’s a plumbing issue downstairs.
He gets up to help deal with it, but before he leaves, he leans down and murmurs in my ear, “It might have taken some time to grow and even longer for me to accept as real, but I have no doubts now, and I’m going to love you forever.”
“Me too,” I tell him as he leaves the room.
He flashes me a smile over his shoulder.
I’m giggling and flushed and giddy as I get back to my work. I’ve got another hour left to go today, and there’s no reason not to do it.
The book I need is on the very top shelf of the north wall. I climb the ladder and reach for it. I’ve done the same thing with other books dozens of times.
This one is big, and it slips from my hand as I retrieve it, nearly falling on my head. I grab for it quickly but in the process lose my balance on the ladder.
The last thing I remember is a sudden surge of fear as I fall and the book banging onto the floor right beside me.
twelve
Present
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