His head tilts.
“My dad’s had a lot of girlfriends over the years,” I say. “I wouldn’t be that surprised if I’ve got a few half siblings floating around.”
“Neither of your parents ever remarried?” he asks.
“My mom’s never even dated since my dad,” I say.
“Too brokenhearted?” he asks, which makes me actually laugh.
“Too busy. When I was a kid, she worked a lot to make ends meet, and she always said she’d rather spend her free time with me. I figured once I went to college, she’d give it a try. Instead she got really into CrossFit and made a ton of friends. She’s always basically either exercising with a lady named Pam or taking art classes with a woman named Jan, or drinking smoothies with both of them. She’s really happy, though. That’s what matters.”
Even as I say it, I feel a pang. I know she’s meant it every time she’s told me I could come stay with her, move into her tiny studio. But for the first time since I can remember, she actually has a full life, beyond just taking care of me.
The week Peter dumped me, it took a two-hour phone call to convince her to not cancel the five-day “backpacking journey” she had scheduled with Pam, to come nurse my broken heart. She’d spent too much of her life dropping everything for me, knowing it all fell to her.
I could just as easily weep in her arms at the end of the summer, during my scheduled post–Read-a-thon visit.
“CrossFit,” Miles says thoughtfully. “That explains it.”
“What could that possibly explain?” I ask.
“The screams and clanking metal I hear from the other room when you’re on speakerphone.”
“Oh, no,” I say, “that’s unrelated.”
“I don’t want any more information,” he plays along. “I feel totally uncurious.”
“My regularly scheduled calls with Christian Grey are completely mundane.”
His brows pinch. “Who?”
“It’s from a book,” I say. “Never mind.”
“Ah,” he says. “Not a big reader.”
“I know that’s a possibility,” I say, “and yet I truly cannot fathom it.”
“What do you like about it,” he says.
“Everything,” I say.
His mouth curls. “Fascinating.”
“I like that it feels like I can live as many lives as I want,” I say.
“What’s wrong with this one?”
At my pointed expression, he snorts a laugh. “Okay. But we’re more than just what happened in April. Let’s focus on the other stuff.”
“Like?”
“How did it start?” he asks. “The library thing.”
I cast my mind back, to before grad school, before undergrad even, all the way to the first moment I remember loving a story. Feeling like I was living it. Being, even as a child, bowled over by how something imaginary could become real, could wring every emotion from me or make me homesick for places I’d never been.
“Narnia,” I tell him.
“Now, that one I’ve heard of,” he says.
“Ever since Mr. Tumnus showed up at that snowy lamppost, this world was never going to quite cut it for me.”
“Who’s Mr. Tumnus?” he asks.
“I thought you’d read it!” I cry.
“No, I’ve heard of it,” he corrects me. “As a kid, I never read for fun. I’m dyslexic, and it took too long.”
“What about audiobooks?” I say.
“Does that count?” he asks.
“Of course it counts,” I say.
His eyes narrow. “Are you sure?”
“I’m a librarian,” I say. “If anyone gets to decide whether it counts or not, it’s me.”
His smile parts, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
