A twist in my story;【 Stephanie & Yifan 】
Routine - a customary or regular course of procedure, a typical, everyday activity. Perhaps it was fate having a laugh with its morbid sense of humor as it put things into motion, pulling the strings one at a time, carefully leading the steps of two distinct individuals towards the same place. Or maybe it was nothing complex, but rather a simple coincidence that they had come to cross paths. There are people that enter our lives unexpectedly and they are the ones that tend to leave a much greater impact on our lives, greater than others normally would – that was something that Stephanie would soon learn.
The image of him walking into the library for the first time was still freshly embedded into her memory, feeling almost as if mere hours had passed since their first encounter, when, in fact, it had been days – maybe even weeks. It wasn’t something that she could easily erase from her memory, not when nearly every other day held the same in store for her; for them. They had been involved into a routine long before they’d get to know one another, a routine which could be counted both as work and as a favorite past-time activity for the pair. People say that, among others, we are drawn together by common passions, by things that we find ourselves relating to those that surround us; perhaps, that too, had contributed to their meeting.
Days spent working at the library bared resemblance to one another long before he had appeared. The job wasn’t exciting, ‘dull’ being a more adequate adjective to attribute to it, but she found it enjoyable nonetheless. Hours upon hours, she would spend at the front desk, turning the pages of various books, reading whatever contents it was that they held. There wasn’t a specific genre that she settled on reading, so she was always free to choose between each and every single one of pieces of work found onto the long rows of shelves.
She easily recalled having just settled down, fiddling with reading the short summary on the backside of a book that she had just picked, when the bell at the front door rang, signaling that someone had entered. Having customers walk in wasn’t a rarity, but it wasn’t an everyday occurrence either. People that came in were always in a rush, asking if they had a certain book or a set of them, leaving as soon as they obtained what they needed – none had taken the time to walk through the library, to look through each of the shelves and pick out something that they liked or that piqued their interest… All but one.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in how their conversation had gone. He asked about some titles and authors and she, as per always, looked them up in the computer, only to realize that they did have some work from the authors which he inquired of, but not what he was specifically looking for. With a short salute, people normally left – but he didn’t. Instead, he nodded in understanding and asked if he could stay and look at what else they had. He had probably questioned both the surprised look on her face and the slight hesitation before giving out an answer. But then again, he probably had not, remaining passive towards her and focusing on the reason that he had wandered into the library to begin with.
That was how all had begun. From that day forth, the man made a habit of coming over at the library ever so often, being the first and only customer – for the time being – that would spend hours within its chamber, wandering through it and then settling at one of the tables, quietly reading whatever it was that he picked out from the shelves. Stephanie had become accustomed to his presence there sooner than she would’ve liked and, even though she refused to admit it, his arrival there was something that she looked forward to. There was some sort of comfort in having him around, even if their conversations were succinct – she was lonely. He was too, maybe – surely. There was some form of fondness, a silent type of admiration that she felt for him, more often than not having found herself looking in his direction, taking in whatever of his mannerism, the titles of books which he choose to lecture. The fascination was there, too – how could it not be? And yet, they were no more than a stranger to one another.
A proper introduction might’ve been delayed, but it was inevitable. And on the day when they had received new books – among which were the ones which she was previously asked about – she felt nervous. Keeping a few of the volumes at the front desk, she proceeded to arrange the others on their respective shelves, based on the author and genre. The task was nothing that she hadn’t done before, nothing that could be considered ‘challenging’ and yet, she could barely concentrate. It didn’t help that there had been several people coming by, completely knocking off whatever was left of her concentration. Forced to admit defeat, she plopped down onto her chair from the front desk and waited; if his arrival was the thing taxing out on her concentration, then she’d wait for him to come by, hands over the books and then, she could start over on her work.
To her luck, she didn’t have to wait that long at all, perhaps a good 30-40 minutes until he had showed up. His entrance was no different than that of the day before, two days ago or whenever it was that he first walked through the door. She, in turn, welcomed him with a warm smile – which he had yet to reciprocate. “Sir?” she called out while pushing the chair back from the desk, making a little distance between the two piece of furniture before standing up. “A while ago, you’ve asked me about some titles—“ setting aside some papers and some of the books that she had picked up for herself, she took the relatively large volumes into her hands and circled the desk, stopping when the distance between them was rendered to only two-three steps. The smile never left her lips, nor did it seem like it would anytime soon, but she kept herself composed while speaking, arms extending to hold the books out for the other. “They’ve arrived today. I think that these are all, but—feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.”
