Overdue

She wasn’t there at nine. She wasn’t there at nine-fifteen. By nine-forty I’d checked the door eleven times, and I know it was eleven because I counted, because counting is what I do when my brain misbehaves.

Relax, said the voice in my head, the one that sounds like me on a good day. Maybe she’s sick. Maybe she finally realized the Saturday crowd is insufferable.

“You’re the Saturday crowd,” I muttered, and the man two tables over lowered his newspaper to stare at me.

Three months. For three months, Olive had been ruining my Saturdays, and I had catalogued every offense. She mouths words when she reads, like she’s tasting them. She brings a chipped blue mug from home and drinks tea that smells like somebody’s garden. She sorts her peanut M&Ms by color and eats the brown ones last because, she informed Mrs. Abernathy at full volume, they’re the underdogs. She builds forts out of library books. She sits in the chair facing the window even though the glare there is objectively terrible, and when I once, against my better judgment, pointed this out, she said, “But it’s pretty,” like that was an argument.

She hums when she’s happy. Off-key. In a library.

Two months ago she’d leaned across the table, stuck out her hand, and said, “I’m Olive, by the way, in case you were wondering who keeps ruining your Saturdays.” I’d shaken it. “Adam,” I’d said, which was the most I’d said to anyone in that building in weeks. She’d grinned like I’d given her a present.

You think about her a lot for someone who’s annoyed, said the voice.

“I’m not annoyed,” I told my laptop. “I’m observant.”

Sure. That’s why you know about the M&Ms.

I tried to work. I have a model that’s been misbehaving for a week, and numbers don’t care about missing girls with chipped mugs. Except I read the same line of code four times, and every time, my eyes slid past it to the door.

At ten-fifteen I told myself I was getting coffee. I did not get coffee. I walked the stacks instead, which is insane, because the stacks are where books live, not people. Except that’s exactly where she was: on the floor in the 570s, biology, knees pulled up, a book open in her lap that she wasn’t reading.

She was crying. Quietly, the way you cry when you don’t want anyone to know. Which meant I knew immediately that something was actually wrong, because Olive is never quiet about anything.

I stood there like an idiot for a full ten seconds. My brain offered several options, all of them terrible. Ask her what’s wrong (I’d do it badly). Leave (cowardice). Pat her shoulder exactly three times (a friend once swore this works; I have never tested it).

What I did instead: I sat down on the floor next to her. My trousers will never recover. I didn’t care, which bothered me more than the trousers.

First I noticed her. Then I noticed I was noticing. Then I stopped pretending I could stop.

“Hi,” she said, wiping her face with her sleeve. “Don’t mind me. Just having a moment between the Dewey decimals.”

“What happened?”

“My advisor moved my defense up two weeks.” A wet laugh. “Six months of preparing and I’m still going to throw up on the committee.”

“You know this work better than anyone who’ll be in that room.” I waited until she looked at me. “Including him.”

She sniffed. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” The air conditioning was doing its usual arctic thing, and her hands were shaking, and for one treacherous second I almost reached for one.

The last time she touched me was two months ago. Her hand in mine, small and warm and sure of itself. Afterwards I stood there staring at my own palm like it had been swapped out, like she’d lit something in it. That tingle, warmer than any bonfire I’d ever stood near. I didn’t want to let go. I wanted to keep holding on forever, and it scared me so completely I almost laughed. Scared and excited, no idea if it showed.

I couldn’t risk feeling that again. Not with her crying two feet away from me.

So I did the only other thing I know. I said the truest thing I had. “You’re going to be scared. Remember why you’re doing this. You belong in that room. You just have to show them.”

And before my brain could file a protest, I was shrugging off my jacket and putting it around her shoulders. It swallowed her. She looked up at me, surprised, and said the strangest thing.

“You have gray-green eyes.”

“What?”

“Gray-green. I’ve been trying to figure out the color for three months.” She pulled the jacket tighter. It smelled like me; I tried not to think about that. “I have a whole list, you know. Things I’ve noticed about you.”

Oh no, said the voice, delighted.

“You push your glasses up when you’re thinking. You mouth ’idiot’ at your laptop at least twice an hour. You always take the same table, and you check the door every hour on the hour, like you’re expecting someone, even though you clearly hate people.”

“I don’t hate people.”

“You hate most people,” she said, smiling through it. “I’m the exception. Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

I could tell her about my list. The freckle under her left eye that only shows when she laughs. The way she takes the stairs two at a time like she’s racing someone. How she always reads the last page first, like she can’t stand not knowing how things end. How she scrunches her whole face when she reads something sad, like the sentences personally offended her. How she lights up at the happy parts. How she blushes at the steamy scenes and immediately looks around to check if anyone saw, and someone always saw, I saw, I always see. I’ve mostly stopped reading my own books on Saturdays. Nothing on the page is ever as good as watching her fall for some fictional man.

Three months of cataloguing and I have eleven pages of it up here.

Absolutely not. She’d think I’m insane. Or worse, she’d stop coming.

My chest was doing something unprofessional. I stood up before it could get worse, because standing is what you do when sitting has become dangerous.

“Same time next week,” I said.

“It’s Saturday, Adam.”

“I know.” I looked at her, small on the floor in my jacket, probably M&Ms in her pocket, defense in two weeks, eyes red, still somehow the brightest thing in the building. “Next Saturday.”

I walked away before I could ruin it. At the door I looked back once, which I told myself was just to check the time on the wall clock.

She was still wearing my jacket.

She’s going to have to give it back, thought the voice.

I know. That’s the idea.

She was wearing my jacket.

I saw it from the door — I was early, obviously, I’d been early for an hour — and for a full three seconds my brain refused to process it. Then it processed it all at once, and I had to sit down.

“Hi,” Olive said, sliding into the chair across from me. The pretty one with the terrible glare. She was swimming in my jacket, sleeves pushed up to her elbows. “You’re staring.”

“I’m observant.”

“You’re staring observantly.” She grinned. Then, quieter: “I wore it all week.”

Oh.

“I know I was supposed to give it back today, and I will, I am. But I wanted you to know it didn’t sit in a closet.” She pulled a sleeve up to her nose, then caught herself. “It smells like you.”

“It smells like me?”

“Well. It did.” A pause. “Now it probably smells like vanilla. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” The words came out before I could stop them.

Don’t ever be sorry.

Her cheeks went pink at the edges, and my chest did something tender and terrifying, because I’d done that. Four words, and I’d done that.

“What I mean is thank you. For last Saturday. I didn’t say it properly because I was busy crying between the Dewey decimals, but, thank you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t have to. I wanted to.” She started shrugging it off. “Here. Before I change my mind and keep it forever.”

She held it out, and I took it. It was warm from her, and it smelled like vanilla and library dust and something I couldn’t name, and I stood there holding it like an idiot while my entire catalog of her rearranged itself around this new data point.

Tell her to keep it.

But then you don’t get to smell her on it tonight when you’re trying to sleep.

Absolutely stop thinking in that direction.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing.” I folded it over my arm. Very deliberately did not bring it to my face. “How’s the defense prep?”

“Terrifying. One week.” She flopped into the chair. “I’m going to throw up on the committee, Adam. I’ve accepted it. I’m just hoping I throw up coherently.”

“You’re going to be fine.”

“You’re not allowed to say that.” She stopped. Smiled. “Last Saturday, what you said. I’ve been thinking about it all week. ’Remember why you’re doing this.’ I wrote it on a sticky note. It’s on my bathroom mirror.”

Oh no.

“It’s stupid, I know—”

“It’s not stupid.” My voice came out rougher than I intended. “That’s good.”

She looked at me for a long moment. Then: “Can I ask you something?”

“Obviously.”

“Why do you check the door?”

My stomach dropped. “What?”

“Every Saturday. Every hour, on the hour.” She leaned forward. “I’ve been watching you watch the door for three months. Who are you waiting for, Adam?”

You. It was always you. Even before I knew it was you.

What I said: “Nobody.”

“Liar.” Soft, not teasing, just certain. “You’ve been on the same page for twenty minutes.”

And then she did the bravest thing. She reached across the table and took my hand, the one that had almost reached for hers a week ago in the 570s, and held it. It was warm, and I could feel it shaking, just barely. Brave and terrified at the same time.

Static electricity. Dry air. Wool coat.

Sure. That’s why you’re not breathing.

“Hi,” she said quietly.

“Hi,” I said back.

She didn’t let go. I didn’t let go. The jacket sat folded on the table between us, smelling like both of us now, and I was cataloguing again before I could stop myself, the warmth of her palm, her thumb moving, barely, against my knuckle. Like she was nervous too. Like this was brave for her, not just me.

Eleven pages. And not one of them had prepared me for this.

You’re holding her hand.

I noticed.

You’ve wanted to since the 570s.

Longer. Since the handshake.

“Adam?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“You’re doing the staring thing again.”

“I’m cataloguing.”

She smiled, the full one, the freckle appearing. And then she laced her fingers through mine, deliberate, like she was shelving something exactly where it belonged.

Oh.

I know. That’s the idea.

“Okay,” Olive said, standing up. “You’re buying me coffee.”

“What?”

She was already pulling me up by the hand, my hand, the one she’d been holding, the one I still hadn’t fully processed, and I followed because my legs had apparently made an executive decision without consulting me.

I shrugged my jacket back on as we went. It smelled like vanilla now.

and her.

Don’t make me think about that right now.

“Olive—”

“You’ve been sitting there cataloguing my knuckles for ten minutes.” She grinned back at me. “You need air. I need caffeine. This is a perfect plan.”

We walked through the reading room like that, her hand in mine, and I was very aware that Mrs. Abernathy was watching us over her glasses with an expression I couldn’t decode.

Everyone can see this.

Good. Let them.

Outside, the day was too bright and too loud. She didn’t let go. She wove us through the Saturday crowd on the sidewalk like she’d been doing it forever, and I walked half a step behind, staring at our hands.

Her thumb was doing that thing again. Barely moving against my knuckle.

She’s doing it on purpose.

She’s just walking.

She’s holding your hand.

She’s just being friendly. People hold hands. Friends hold hands.

Name one friend whose hand you’ve held.

I had no answer for that, which the voice knew, which was why it had asked.

“You’re quiet,” she said, not looking back.

“I’m observing.”

“You’re spiraling.”

“I’m observing my spiraling.”

She laughed, and her hand squeezed mine. Once. Quick. I filed it under unresolved and underlined it twice.

The coffee cart was two blocks down, striped awning, line of Saturday people. She let go to dig for her wallet, she had to, there was no other way to do it, and the loss of it was so immediate and physical I almost said something stupid out loud.

Don’t.

I wasn’t going to.

You were absolutely going to.

“What do you drink?” she asked.

“Coffee. Black. Black coffee.”

Get a grip, man.

She turned to the menu. “One black coffee, and one caramel macchiato, extra caramel, whipped cream.”

I stared at her. “That’s not coffee. That’s dessert.”

“It’s coffee-flavored dessert. There’s a difference.” She told the vendor, “He’s buying,” and pointed at me.

I paid. Obviously I paid.

You’d buy her a unicorn if she’d let you.

She handed me the black one and kept the dessert. “Next time I’ll buy.”

Next time. Did you hear that? Next time.

I heard it. Stay calm. Chill.

We started walking, coffees in hand, and I was absurdly aware that neither of us was holding the other’s hand anymore, and that both of us knew it, and that neither of us was saying it.

“So,” she said. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

“Like what?”

“Anything real. Where are you from?”

I watched a pigeon commit a crime against a pretzel. “Nowhere interesting.”

“Adam.” She stopped walking. “That’s not an answer and you know it.”

Tell her. Tell her about the house with the too-quiet kitchen. Tell her about—

“It’s a small town. Midwest. The kind of place where everyone knows your name and nobody knows you at all.”

She was quiet for a second. “That’s actually an answer. See? You can do it.” She started walking again. “What do you do?”

“I work with models.”

“What kind of models?”

“The misbehaving kind.”

She gave me a look. “You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing where you answer everything and nothing.” She sipped her dessert-coffee. “It’s okay. I’ll get it out of you eventually. I have time. I’m very patient.”

I’m in trouble.

You are so in trouble.

She’s going to figure you out, isn’t she?

“What?” It came out before I could stop it.

“Did you say something?”

“Why do you want to know about me?” Definitely smooth. Mostly.

Because she likes you.

You don’t know that.

She held your hand and told you to buy her coffee.

That could easily be friendly.

“I...” She hesitated, turning her cup in her hands. “I feel like I see a depth in you that you don’t let the rest of the world see. I want to know if I’m wrong about it.”

Yup. Officially screwed.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever thought of me that way.”

Good. Neither accept nor deny.

“Like I said,” she said confidently, smiling. “I’m very patient. You’ll eventually give in.”

Only if she knew.

We walked in silence for a bit. Side by side. Our hands swung between us, close enough that her knuckles brushed mine every few steps.

Brush. Step. Step. Brush.

Then she went quiet, which was so unlike her that I noticed it immediately.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.” A beat. “Just thinking about next week.”

The defense. Seven days. I wanted to give her the whole speech again, but I’d already given her that one. It was on her bathroom mirror.

So I just said, “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said.

“You’re ready.”

She looked at me. “You keep saying that.”

“I keep meaning it.”

Something crossed her face, quick, unguarded. Then she bumped my shoulder with hers, light, and said, “Race you back.”

She took off running, red cardigan bright against the gray sidewalk, coffee somehow not spilling, laughing.

I stood there holding my cup like an idiot.

Go.

I went, chasing the red cardigan down the gray sidewalk, coffee sloshing over my hand, laughing before I could stop myself. And the voice, for once, said nothing at all. It was too busy watching her too.