Selene's POV
The cool evening air did little to soothe the burn of humiliation and regret that crawled up Selene's neck. Eliza's chatter was a distant buzz, a radio tuned to a station she couldn't quite receive. Every step away from the library felt like a betrayal, a retreat. She had left a piece of her heart back in the silent, dusty aisles, lying shattered at Lyra's feet.
I thought you were going to be patient with me.
The words were a ghost, haunting her. They weren't a rejection; they were a confession. And she had walked away. She had let Eliza's timely interruption and her own wounded pride sever the connection just as it had finally, painfully, become real.
"You're quiet," Eliza noted, her hand still a warm, foreign weight on Selene's arm.
"I just... I need to go back," Selene said, the decision solidifying as the words left her mouth.
Eliza's smile faltered. "Back? Selene, she just told you she needed space. You heard her."
"I know what I heard. But I also know what I said. I told her I'd be back before closing." The memory of her own desperate promise echoed in her mind. I'll be back. It hadn't been a threat; it had been a plea. A thread she had thrown out, hoping against hope that Lyra would grab hold of it.
She pulled her arm gently from Eliza's grasp. "I have to. I have to make sure she's okay. I have to... I don't know. Explain. Something."
Eliza sighed, a flicker of something unreadable annoyance, understanding, pity crossing her features. "Your funeral. The offer for a drink still stands if she slams the door in your face."
Selene offered a weak, grateful smile and turned on her heel, her pace quickening from a walk to a jog, then to a full run. The city blocks blurred. Her lungs burned, but the physical pain was a welcome distraction from the ache in her chest. She had to get there. She had to see her.
She skidded to a halt in front of the grand library doors, her hands braced on her knees as she caught her breath. The building was a dark monolith against the indigo sky. The warm, welcoming glow from the windows was gone. Every light was extinguished.
No.
She tried the heavy doors anyway, pulling with all her strength. They were locked, immovable. She pressed her face against the cold glass, peering into the profound darkness of the lobby. Nothing. No movement. No soft shadow of a girl waiting by the desk.
She left. She heard you say you were coming back, and she left anyway.
The thought was a cold knife. Lyra had chosen the silence. She had chosen to be alone rather than to face Selene and the terrifying, beautiful thing sparking between them.
Dejected, Selene sank onto the cold stone steps, wrapping her arms around herself. The ghost of the kiss, the memory of Lyra's tear-streaked face, the sound of her broken voice it all played on a loop. She had tried to come back, and she had been too late.
The next day was agony. Time stretched and warped, every minute an hour. Selene performed her tasks like an automaton, her eyes constantly darting toward the clock. Maybe Lyra would be there. Maybe yesterday's flight was just a momentary panic. Maybe today, in the calm light of day, they could find their way back to that fragile, honest place.
She arrived as the afternoon sun was casting long, lazy shadows. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she pushed through the familiar doors. Her eyes flew to the circulation desk, searching for the one face she needed to see.
But it wasn't Lyra. It was Isla, another library assistant, who looked up with a cheerful, oblivious smile.
"Hi, Selene! Need help finding something?"
Selene approached the desk, her fingers gripping the smooth wood. "Hi, Isla. I was... I was actually looking for Lyra. Is she working today?"
Isla's smile didn't fade. "Lyra? Oh, no, she took the day off." She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping into a more conversational tone. "She had to run to the airport last night to pick someone up. Sounded like a whole thing. Guess she needed today to recover from the late night."
The words were simple, casual, but they hit Selene with the force of a physical blow.
The airport. Last night.
The timeline clicked into place with devastating clarity. Lyra hadn't just gone home after closing. She hadn't been hiding in the dark library, wrestling with her feelings. The moment Selene had left, the moment the doors were locked, Lyra had gone to the airport. To pick someone up.
Who? A friend? Family? The question was a torment. But another, more insidious thought followed: a lover. A reason why Lyra was so terrified, why she had pushed Selene away. A real, tangible person who existed outside the charged, silent world of the library.
The confession, the tears, the promise to return it had all been for nothing. While Selene was sitting on the cold library steps, aching with a hope she couldn't quell, Lyra was driving to the airport, her mind undoubtedly on someone else.
"Oh," Selene managed, the word a hollow echo. She forced her grip to relax on the desk. "Right. Okay. Thanks, Isla."
She turned away, her vision blurring. The library, once her sanctuary, now felt like a crime scene. The evidence was everywhere: in the empty space behind the desk, in the quiet aisles where they'd almost kissed. Lyra wasn't just avoiding her. She had an entire life Selene knew nothing about, a life that had called her away the very instant Selene had laid her heart bare.
She had been too late. And now, she felt more foolish than ever for thinking she could ever have been first in line. The words from Isla echoed in the hollowed-out chamber of Selene's chest. She had to run to the airport last night. Each repetition was a tiny, precise puncture, deflating the last of her desperate hope.
The rest of her research hours were a blur. Words on pages swam meaninglessly before her eyes. She took notes by rote, her hand moving while her mind was trapped in a loop of imagined scenarios: Lyra smiling as she held a sign at arrivals, Lyra embracing a faceless, grateful figure, Lyra driving away from the city and from Selene without a second thought.
When her phone buzzed with a text, the vibration against the silent study table felt like an alarm.
Eliza: Beach party is on. Waves are good, drinks are cold. You still coming? Could be a good reset.
A reset. The idea was suddenly, intensely appealing. She couldn't sit here anymore, surrounded by the ghost of Lyra in every bookshelf. She couldn't go home to the four walls where she would just replay everything. She needed noise. She needed motion. She needed something so utterly different from the quiet, painful intensity of the library that it might just drown out the ache.
She typed a reply, her decision firm.
Selene: Finished up. On my way. Send me the address.
She packed her things with a new, grim purpose, not looking back at the empty desk as she left. The library doors swung shut behind her for the last time that day. She didn't walk; she marched, heading away from the silent world of what-ifs and toward the loud, beating heart of the beach, where Eliza and a much-needed distraction awaited.