Chapter Twenty-Six

Hannah

The World of Books near campus couldn’t be more different than Prometheus; it’s hard to believe the two stores serve the same function. I wander the aisles, looking for something to read. I haven’t picked up a book since I walked out of Ben’s apartment a week ago, and it’s driving me crazy. I’m desperate to get lost in someone else’s world for a while, so I’ve waded into the superstore, even though buying a book without Ben physically hurts.

The store is massive, with soaring high ceilings and bright fluorescent lighting. The shelves are glossy, pale wood lined with tidy, dust-free stacks of books with multiple copies of each title. Printed tags identify some as best sellers or award-winners. Every book is clean and new, without battered dust jackets, dog-eared pages, or notes scribbled inside front covers or along the margins. They’re all blank slates, created to be read fresh, without history to share.

Round tables are scattered everywhere with books grouped by theme. Non-fiction, crime, young adult fantasy, book club favorites, and beach reads even though it’s winter in Ohio and the beach is a distant memory. They make it so easy to find exactly what you want to read, so why am I still wandering the store in a fog?

Nothing grabs my attention. I don’t want to know how many weeks this book topped the New York Times Bestseller list, or when the blockbuster film adaptation is being released. I want to know what Ben thought about it. I want Ben to describe it to me, his eyes alight with excitement. I want a book that Ben has picked out especially for me, because he knows me and knows it’ll be exactly the one I want and need to read right now. But Ben isn’t here, instead an army of World of Books employees in identical red polo shirts are. And not one of them looks like they would happily spend an hour picking out the perfect book for me to read.

Without Ben, there isn’t any excitement to this process. I’m not searching this room full of books, mind spinning with possibilities like in Prometheus. Even with the burned out bulbs, the dust, the rickety, mismatched, overstuffed shelves, Prometheus felt magical. Here I could just as easily be buying canned soup or T-shirts.

I miss him so much, and I could have him back with a phone call. I’m not even all that mad that he kept law school a secret from me anymore. He was under a freakish amount of pressure from his dickhead dad, and he knew what I’d say, so he didn’t want to tell me. I get it. But he’s still moving to Chicago in a few months and starting a new life that’s the antithesis of everything he cares about. It’s going to change him, and I can’t bear to watch him become someone new. I love the old Ben too much.

I don’t buy anything. There’s nothing here I want. It’s snowing again outside, coating the dirty heaps already on the ground with a fresh, clean layer of white. I walk without a destination as I watch my feet sink into the snow, one step after the other, over the Tenumbrah River and into downtown Arlington. The sparkling twinkle lights strung up for the holidays have all been packed away. The magic is gone.

I’ve actively avoided going anywhere near Prometheus since I walked out on Ben. But it’s like my feet are hardwired to go there, and I’m turning onto Charles Street before registering where I’ve been headed. Now that I’m here, I just want to walk by and catch a glimpse of him, to see if he looks as bad as I feel.

Halfway up the block, he steps out the door, and a second later, Alex exits behind him. She’s chattering away about something, laughing, while Ben smiles and nods and goes through the routine of closing up the shop.

Well, I wanted to torture myself, and now I’m getting what I wanted, because this is awful. I can’t breathe. I can’t move a muscle. More than anything, I want to run away, but I can’t stop looking.

Ben finishes closing the store, and they chat for a minute. Ben shrugs offhandedly and motions up the street in the opposite direction from me. Alex smiles at him. He’s not looking at her, so he doesn’t see it, but I do. She’s fucking flirting with him.

After another moment, they turn and walk away side by side.

I told Jasmine it was a possibility that he and Alex might be together in law school next year, since she’d mentioned applying to the same school he’s going to. I thought maybe he’d remember how much he wanted her before he met me. Seems I was right.

I stand there long after they’ve disappeared from sight. The truth is obvious: Ben has already started down that new path he chose. And he might have started me down my own path, but it’s clear I need to follow it alone.