Is this the final stop? (Toni Shalifoe)

Chapter 45

After school, and another full day of Toni avoiding Shelby at every turn in the hallway, Shelby paces in the book nook. There's not much space even with it being empty. Door locked. Shelby runs her hands through her hair, scratching at her skull. She fishes out the phone from her pocket and types her ninth message to Toni.

Delivered.

She bites her lip to stop it from quivering. She plops down into a toddler-sized chair. Knees knocking together, tucked into her chest. She looks up at the cardboard tree. Shelby closes her eyes and listens to the birds chirping. Hoping their melodies will give her the answers to the problems she needs to fix. There's a nest on the brick ledge.

She's spent so much time in this book nook. Even when she didn't have to. Like after cheer practice. Or before the town's fireworks. Perhaps it was the books and the notes in the tree keeping her company. Maybe it was the fact that the birds nest on the ledge always had occupants each season.

And she could watch the birds grow up. Make families. Fly away. She would imagine that she was the lost egg on the other side of the window. Shelby walks over to the window to peer into it. One single blue egg.

The robin flies back into sight and sits on the egg. Head swiveling and moving. Checking its surroundings. Making sure it's not seen. Checking for an incoming predator.

Shelby's done that, too. Sometimes even in her own house. And she feels like she's still doing that.

Shelby leans on the ledge and watches. Another bird flies into the nest. With worms in its mouth. Feeding the mother. Even tucking some next to the egg. Just in case. Shelby thinks it looks at her just for a moment, as if it was checking in. Peering into her soul.

When she was younger, she believed that the birds who flew the nest would come back. That they didn't love their freedom as much as it looked. So little Shelby would rush back to this ledge at every chance she could. Just to get a quick look and see if she was right. Or if she was wrong. But she knew one thing, she had to make the birds proud. To come back to this spot. Show them how she's grown, both in height, and as a person.

But she knows she hasn't. Not really. Not yet. Definitely not this week.

And she knows it's time to jump out of the nest. Shelby texts Toni again. A longer message. Thumbs moving fast. Adding another paragraph.

Delivered.

Her eyes shift to the cardboard tree, with its hanging leaves of notes. And a branch reading, "Take what you need, give what you can." Shelby stands and pulls on a few leaves, looking at the messages. The art. The four-year-old's scribbles.

She spots a stack of green paper and a wide selection of colored markers and pencils. She takes one, sits back in the toddler seat, all scrunched and cramped, then starts writing.

Shelby sits back against the chair. Reading her leaf. Rereading it. She folds in half. Then diagonally again and again. Like she's making the veins of a leaf. Shelby takes the hold punch, squeezes it, and grabs the yarn to tie it up.

Shelby hangs it in the back. It dangles downward. Looking sad. She tightens the string and knots it so that it matches the rest. Blending in.

Shelby pulls out her phone again. One last text.

Delivered.

But she hears the notification. Shelby jumps out of the chair and runs out the back door. And descends the winding staircase. She looks out into the first floor of the library. But there's no one she recognizes. No Toni.
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Toni enters through the front door of the book nook.

Needing some space of her own. She kicks off her shoes. She even uses Shelby's door lock trick. Andrew's door lock trick, she corrects herself. She shudders.