The Hoodie Girl

Original Edition: 02

Chapter 2 | Little Red

You're a mess, I confess, I despise you in the best kind of way.
- Coco J. Ginger

Listen to Teenage Dream by Boyce Avenue for this chapter.

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At the end of the school day, the bell rings - an annoyingly loud and tedious sound that all students hate and love simultaneously.

Bags are not allowed in the library due to the possibility of theft. I always find the thought of that confusing-why steal a book when you can just borrow it and return it later? Or even better, when your parents can afford a whole book case?

I drop off my bag at the front, making my way to the fiction part of the library; the scent of the new books that were placed on display dispersing through the area, making everything smell woodsy.

Without thinking, I flick the rubber hair band on my wrist while I scour the spines on the shelves for what I am searching for, until I finally find it.

I lodge it out of its place without a second thought. The title reads A Thousand Splendid Suns, a novel I have surprisingly not read yet.

With the book in my hand, I wander around the rows of novels, trudging along the navy blue carpeted floor, until a certain spine catches my eye. I pick up the book, and read the last page. If I like the ending, I choose the book. This process continues until I have over ten books overflowing in my arms.

Tons of people shamelessly judge books by their covers. A sad confession: I judge books by their endings. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a psychotic fan of happy endings, just particularly good ones. I believe in forever, not happy endings, not sad. I love books, but the endings annoy me like a little scab you can't wait to pick.

I curve my steps into the poetry section. Recognizing a spine label, I slot out the book from the shelf. A book I have happened to read over fifty times, and a book that no matter what I did I could not seem to make sense of. Romeo and Juliet.

When I pull at the book, I find not a dark space of nothingness, but a dark turquoise eye. It blinks. I feel my eyes widen and I shakily place the book back, not wanting to see more of the blue eyed person on the other side of the shelf.

What an awkward experience.

Deciding that I'd come back another time to fetch my abandoned book, and that I have so many that they are obscuring my view and piling in my arms anyway, I stumble my way to the librarian at the desk.

He frowns quizzically at the amount of books flooding in my arms, and grins when I collapse the books onto the scanning desk. He counts the novels at an expert's pace while he piles them into a mountain of yellowed pages, and then looks up at me blankly.

"I'm afraid you've taken out over the borrowing limit, young lady," he says, and his dark skin wrinkles at the corners of his lips when he smiles.

"But you know what? I'll let it pass." Then he winks. I nod politely with a smile, and watch silently as he sends the scanner to my books, eyeing the pale pages with avid interest.

"Nice choice," the middle-aged man murmurs. When he finishes, I try my best to scoop up the huge pile, and finally succeed, taking as cautious steps as possible to my locker, which is thankfully close to the library.

"Here, let me try," a deep voice says behind me. And, in an instant, I let out a small shriek and drop all the unfortunate books on my inadvertent victim.