The Books He Lent Me

Chapter 1: Bookstore

I met the man I would marry because neither of us knew how to end a conversation about books.

It happened on a rainy Saturday afternoon in a bookstore squeezed between a bakery and a shop that repaired clocks. The store was narrow, quiet, and filled with shelves that seemed to lean toward one another like old friends sharing secrets. Every time the front door opened, a small brass bell rang above it, and the smell of wet pavement briefly mixed with the scent of paper and dust.

I had gone inside to escape the rain.

At least, that was what I told myself.

The truth was that bookstores had always been my preferred hiding place. Other people went to cafés, parks, or crowded rooms when they felt lonely. I went wherever stories were stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Books never asked why I was quiet. They never noticed when I stood awkwardly at the edge of a room or laughed a second too late at a joke.

That afternoon, I was searching the fiction shelves when I saw him sitting on the floor.

He had three books open around him and another balanced across one knee. His hair was still damp from the rain. He was reading so intently that he did not notice me trying to reach the shelf behind him.

I waited.

He kept reading.

I cleared my throat.