His gaze sharpened, like he was waiting for me to break.But I didn’t.I let a small smile curve at my mouth—not mocking, not dismissive, just… warm.
The silence stretched, heavy as snow-laden branches.I wondered if he heard how fast my heart was beating.But I also noticed something else—something in his eyes.For a moment, just a flicker, the haunted look of a man carrying too many ghosts.
That look only made me more curious.More certain.
Because I’d come here to help catalog his library, but maybe what really needed sorting wasn’t the books.Maybe it was him.
So I decided, right then and there, that I wasn’t going to let Charlie Archer scare me away.Not with scars.Not with words.Not with walls built higher than his bookshelves.
I gave him my lightest, bravest smile and stepped over the threshold.“Shall we get started?”
The door shut behind me with a groan, and I followed Mr.Archer down a narrow hallway.The air smelled faintly of wood smoke and something older, like time itself had settled into the walls.The floor creaked under our steps, the kind of sound that made you think twice about breathing too loudly.He didn’t look back, didn’t bother to explain.Just walked with that heavy limp and an aura that saidkeep up or get out.
And then he opened the door.
I stopped in my tracks.My breath caught the second I stepped inside.
The room stretched tall and wide, lined with shelves that seemed to scrape the ceiling.Books towered in precarious stacks on tables, chairs, even the floor.Sunlight filtered through the dusty curtains, catching particles that drifted in the air like snowflakes.The space was dim, yes, but it glowed in a way that felt almost holy.Like I wasn’t in a room at all but in some kind of cathedral—one built not of stone and stained glass, but of stories.
My heart skipped.My hands tingled.I wanted to touch everything at once.
Behind me, his voice cut through the silence, low and rough.“Hopeless, isn’t it?You’ll never make sense of this mess.”
The words weren’t casual.They were a challenge, sharp as the lines etched into his face.He was daring me to give up before I even began, maybe hoping I would.
But instead of despair, excitement bubbled up in me.I dropped to my knees without thinking, brushing dust off a spine with my glove.The leather was cracked, the title faded, but the weight of it in my hand made my chest ache with wonder.
“I’ve seen worse,” I said, my voice soft but steady.And I meant it kindly, with no hint of sarcasm.I looked up at him and let myself smile, hoping he could see it was genuine.
But inside?Inside I knew the truth.I hadneverseen anything like this.Not in the school library I’d grown up in, not in the university’s sleek rows of polished shelves.This was raw and wild and magnificent.A beautiful chaos.
I turned the book gently in my hands, already imagining the order I could bring here—shelves dusted, volumes catalogued, stacks sorted by subject and author until this room wasn’t just a maze but a map of knowledge.
“Hopeless?”I whispered to myself, glancing at the shafts of light gilding the air.No, not hopeless.Not at all.
It was beautiful.
I slipped deeper into the library, careful with each step so I wouldn’t topple a stack that looked like it might collapse with the brush of a sleeve.My fingers trailed lightly over spines worn soft by use, some cracked and brittle, others surprisingly sturdy.The air smelled of paper and dust, but underneath, there was something else—something lived-in, something human.
The longer I moved among the books, the more I felt it.This wasn’t just a collection.It was a life.Each volume carried a weight heavier than its binding, the weight of memory.I could almost imagine the hours spent here, reading by lamplight, losing himself in someone else’s words when his own world grew too sharp.Every surface told the story of a man who had guarded these shelves like they were his last line of defense.
A lump formed in my throat, and suddenly the silence pressed down, thick and uncomfortable.My nerves prickled at the edges, threatening to unravel me if I let them.So, without thinking, I did what I’d always done to steady myself: I hummed.
It was a tune my grandmother loved to sing in the kitchen while rolling out pie crusts—a Christmas carol that had followed me through childhood Decembers, sweet and simple.The notes floated out of me before I even realized, soft but steady, filling the dusty air with something warmer than silence.
I thought it might comfort me.Instead, it startled him.
Across the room, where he lingered like a sentry at the threshold, Mr.Archer stiffened.His broad shoulders tensed, his jaw set hard, and though he didn’t speak, I felt the shift in the room like a change in weather.My humming had touched something—maybe a memory, maybe a wound—and it startled me enough to falter mid-verse.
But I didn’t stop.Not completely.Because even as he bristled, I couldn’t shake the sense that the sound had cracked something open, even if only a sliver.
I bent down, brushing dust from another book, letting the familiar melody steady my hands.My heart fluttered, but not with fear.Curiosity, maybe.Compassion, certainly.Whatever the humming stirred in him, it was something he didn’t want touched.Which made me wonder—maybe it was something that needed to be.
I glanced up at him from the corner of my eye.He still hadn’t moved, still looked as though the smallest wrong note might send him retreating behind his walls.But in his silence, I sensed more than irritation.I sensed longing.Loneliness.
I straightened, holding the book close to my chest.He needed this library sorted, yes.That much was obvious.But as I stood there, surrounded by the ghosts he’d trapped in ink and paper, I wondered if he needed more than that.
Maybe what he needed was someone who wasn’t afraid to stay.
