Agoraphobia by CharlieandEm (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📕

She’s not even worth it.”
“How can you lecture me on my relationship choice, but we can’t present a notion to you without you tearing her throat out?” He yelled, angry now.
“You really think that she’s a good choice?” I asked him, rhetorically, “And you really think that I’m making a bad choice? There is no way that you can answer yes to both and expect me to take you seriously.”
“Do you even know what he does?” Robin asked.
“I expect he bums around like you until he goes to class.”
“So what’s he studying then? Is he even studying?” Robin looked at me severely, but his look changed to one of sadness. “I know about the ‘scheme’ you’re talking about. That is why we’re staying together.” He frowned. “One of the reasons.” He corrected. He glared at me, in concern rather than rage now – his temper always passed quickly. I still seethed – unashamed about what I had said to them. “Ask him,” Robin said as he walked to comfort Ron outside, “Rather get it from the horse’s mouth than discovering the lie yourself.”

A week or so later I walked to the library to returned book I had been reading. It was one that Sebastian had suggested and taken out for me. He had handed it over reluctantly, making me pledge to return it by the correct date. What Robin had said bothered me. I could not remember is I had assumed that Sebastian was studying English Literature, or if he had to me so. He made it clear that he read more than he breathed, as the list I had to read far exceeded that of my school set list. I made myself read the ones with interesting covers, defying the proverb, or the ones that were shorter. I stumbled into the library, blinded by the low sunshine of the afternoon, and searched for signs to tell me where to go to take the book back. I found a sign indicating that green stickers were children’s books, and red were from the adult’s library. A red arrow, ad if I had not caught onto the colour scheme already, pointed the way to the adult library. I shuffled in and, noticing the lengthy line for returns and remembering the clumsiness with which I searched through libraries, decided to find the next book on my list. My policy was as follows: find the first five books, usually with help, and determine which was the shortest, most interesting looking of the five. This worked in the school library; but in the public library, easily ten times the size, I knew that more time was necessary. The first book took ten minutes to find, despite the distractions of happier looking novels along the way. The second and third were both positioned close to the multimedia area of the library – and incidentally both were available on DVD. As tempted as I was to rent the films instead, I decided not to cheat the system Sebastian had set in place for me to ‘recover my love for literature’. I had assured him that children’s books to a child were not the same as meaningful literature to some one like me, but obviously I needed to be more persuasive. I gave up after the next hour and the fourth book as it was getting dark and the line was getting longer as people rushed to bring their rented material back before it’s time limit expired. The music section of the library was well stocked, in sheet and media forms, and I allowed myself a quick browse of the repertoire.
“Excuse me,” a man interrupted my quality time with the CD selection.
“Mm,” I replied without looking up. There was a pause as the man began to realise that I did not intend meeting his gaze.
“Could I check the due date of your book? The line is long and we want to save time as it is almost closing.”
“Yes, thanks, it’s the one on the top.” I said, vaguely grateful for his consideration. I would have looked at him, had I not found Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade I had been craving since Robin had performed it almost two months before. I had forgotten that the Classical selection was always well stocked at public libraries in hope that teeny-boppers who were too cheap to buy their music would run out of pop CD’s and move onto Classical in desperation.
“This date is exceeded by a week, Miss. Vaughn.” He said once he had time to check the date. I help the CD tightly, ecstatic to have found it. My face warmed at the excitement I felt.
“I’m sorry, I’m quite a slow reader and my friend insisted that I read that.” I said as I turned around, chatty because my cheeks were brimming with a smile and my heart tapped enthusiastically at the idea of rushing home and listening to this piece until I could sing it by heart. “How long can I –” I stopped short as the face I had spent to time putting to the voice was Sebastian’s. How long had it been since I had seen him that I failed to recognise his voice?
“It’s been a while,” he said on cue, tapping the book on the bookcase that he was leaning against. “You didn’t call me back.” Unused to Sebastian being confrontational, simply because there had been no subject to confront until now, I held my mouth shut and decided to bide my time and think about an appropriate response. I had been hoping, since Sebastian told me that he had been on holiday for the past week, that I would have read at least two of his books by the time he had returned. Unfortunately I did not even have one under my belt. The book he was still tapping against the bookcase had overdue and unfinished.
“Hi.” Was all I came up with, “I thought you’d be away for at least another two days.”
“Surprise,” he said, slightly mockingly.
“Sorry about the book.” I said, “I really had trouble becoming literate again.”
“No problem.” He smiled, breaking the hardness that I had never seen him wear. “What did you think?” he asked without allowing for a moment of further defence.
“I haven’t finished it.” I said, touchy now that he was prying into my business. I noticed that, with the relative intimacy we had reached in our last visit, this reaction of mine was strangely out of place. Sebastian appraised me for a while and then smiled.
“Reading is not your thing,” He stated.
“Did I not tell you that already?”
“But music is.” He put the overdue book under his arm and motioned for me to give him the CD. “Your brother played this the other day.” He caught on quickly. “You liked it that much?” I nodded. “Doesn’t he have a recording?”
“Even if he did, I wouldn’t ask for it.” I said quietly. Sebastian studied me for a while.
“Why not?” he asked me eventually.
“It’s his thing and not my place to intrude.” I was unsure if he would be satisfied with that answer, but he just looked at the CD again and smiled.
“You need not intrude; just adapt.” He replied, but walked away before I could reply. I followed him to the checkout counter, and jumped the line as the desk that he sat down at was empty due to his absence.
“You work here?” I was surprised, and it showed in my voice. In the shock of seeing, and not recognising, him I had overlooked the neat golf shirt with ‘Librarian’ printed above his heart.
“Well deduced,” he looked up and smiled seductively to show that he meant no offence. “I was shoving books down your throat; surely you didn’t think that I was just a book nerd.”
“No; only a professional book nerd.” I teased.
“Then why were you so confused to see me?” he stamped the CD’s date card and flashed his eyes between me and his work.
“I didn’t think that you’d have time to work, with class and everything.” I took a chance at letting my assumption seem innocent, and hoped that he failed to recognise my true intentions.
“I take evening classes.” He said, so briskly that it took a moment for me to catch the weight of his confession. The institution of study meant little to me, as long as he was studying and I could prove that he was better than Robin thought that he was. He turned his back to me and scratched around in a dimly lit room to his right for the correct CD. The line had grown behind me and the elderly man next in line was too close to stand and wait comfortably. I turned sideways, pretending to look at a poster on contraception on the far wall, to gain a little bit of space for myself and the expense of a nudge to the old man’s walker. Apologising for his own closeness, making me feel bad for inconveniencing a pensioner in his state, the old man moved backwards slightly. He had droopy, kind eyes and so, as reparation, I commented on his book choice which set him off on an extensive explanation about his grandchildren. As sweet, and sometime tedious as it was, I enjoyed the way grandfathers and grandmothers always found a way to relate any topic back to their grandchildren. By this time Sebastian was back and, on his return, his once smug look of catching me out had soured into one of guilt. Sebastian’s service was done and I had no good reason to linger to hear the justification he was psyching himself up to give me. I could see it in the way he tried to touch my hand as he handed over the CD and held my gaze for longer than a very friendly librarian should. “So, I’m not in university.” He mumbled eventually, “Big deal, I’m still as smart as I was before you knew this.”
“Oh, I know; it’s fine.” I said, unrealistically calm, in his eyes, about being lied to.
“Stand in the courtyard and I’ll meet you there in a moment.” He commanded, less kindly than he could have. I stood for about a minute before he joined me.
“You didn’t have to,” I said, “I was just going to go home anyway.”
“Do you want to go out tonight?” he asked me, ignoring what I had just told him.
“Not really. Do you want to come to my place?” I was irrigated that he was being so presumptuous.
“Fine, around six then?”
“Yeah, fine.” he didn’t leave, even after I had agreed. After a while f him staring at me a asked, “How did you get away? You had a line.”
“I asked for a smoke break.”
“You smoke too?” I asked, more offended by this than anything else he had or had not said today.
“No, but my boss does. She lets me take break whenever I want.” I looked away from him, confused as to what else he wanted me to say. “You don’t have any questions about what I just told you?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “I thought I’d never see the day that Olivia Vaughn was all out of questions.”
“I do have one,” I said curtly, “Since when do you think that you can boss me around?”
“I’m not bossing you around.”
“You’re telling me where to go, what to read, how to deal with my brother. Who do you think you are?”
“Apparently only your friend.”
“You’re the one that left on holiday. Things were great between us; I even tried to read – not something I’d do for just anyone I’ll have you know.”
“So what’s the problem then?”