Memories

Memories: Chapter 6

"Excuse me, miss?"

I looked up at him. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know why I was surprised. I had only just met him this morning. Still, it didn’t change the churning that occurred in my stomach, or the way my lips formed nothing, or the way my breath had hitched at his appearance.

I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t believe it. He was here. Standing right before. Extraordinary, god-like, gorgeous, handsome, everything, all pinned with a smile from a Colgate commercial. Whilst I on the other hand probably looked like the moron that I am; I was staring at him. Like, staring at him.

“I’m sorry, I — am I interrupting something?” he asked.

Again, I was still, staring at him.

“Oh, umm — sorry — no I — I was just — I can —”

I saw him trying to suppress a laugh. I sighed embarrassed. “Yes, I can help you, sorry.” “No, really it’s fine,” he said amused.

I went to get up, but I failed miserably, and instead fell painfully on my butt.

He was trying really hard not to laugh now, I could tell. “I-I’m sorry, I was just…” I sighed, giving up on trying to seem normal. I breathed in deeply before asking, “How may I help you?”

He was smiling. “Yes, well, I was just wondering, if you could help me find this one book?” His happiness was contagious; I smiled also. “Well, what book? You’re going to have to be a little more specific; there are a million books in here. I can’t read minds you know.” I thought he muttered something like, “…Thank God…” but I didn’t bother asking. It wasn’t any of my business no matter how much I wanted to know.

“What’s the title?” I asked him. “I don’t remember it, funnily enough,” he explained. “Well, that’s helpful,” I responded sarcastically. He cracked another smile. And no matter how real this one seemed, I felt as if there could be more. Like he wasn’t really smiling, but he was giving a more realistic smile than he usually did. I didn’t know why; it just felt that way.

“Do you know the author?” I asked. “Nope,” he said. I laughed, “Well, then how am I supposed to —”

“Hey, Aemilia?” I stopped what I was saying and turned around to see David. He had brown-almost-black hair and it was cropped on the top of his head. He worked here too, and was pushing a cart of books. “Yeah?” I said. “You mind putting these on the shelves? I gotta’ leave soon.” Anyone else would’ve asked, “For what?” but I knew it wasn’t right to do that. It was none of my business.

Besides, anyone with a brain would know he’s going to a party, or that he’s going to go and hang out with some girl.

“Sure,” I replied, simply, “Thanks,” he breathed, relieved that there was one less thing stopping him from going; if the books were on the shelf, our boss wouldn’t be as angry as he probably would be later, compared to if he hadn’t, because that would just add to fact that he was leaving work early without asking permission or notifying anyone directly.

I walked over and started pushing the cart in the direction of the shelves. I didn’t need to look at all of the books to know which direction to go; I saw some book that had something to do with “immortal” or something, so I already knew it’d be under Romance, Teen-fiction, Fantasy, Young-Adult, Vampire — something like that.

I made my way over to the shelf that accustomed that genre. I looked down at one that read “Marked”, and judging by the cover and title — and since I’ve actually read the book — I knew it went under Vampire. I placed it on the shelf with the rest of its serious that were called, Betrayed, Hunted — and some other stuff that I didn’t feel like looking over.