in the absence of you.
I love you with a love
that wounds.
Reckless, stubborn, willful.
I hug my ribs,
thank them for caging my heart
or else I’d never have control of it,
if I ever do.
I love you with a love
that overcomes me
like the tide,
rushing away,
stealing everything from my grasp,
even you.
Stella sighed. Blackened paper crumbled around the edges and fell toward the floor like dying butterflies. She knelt in front of the furnace, sailed the poem back into the flames, and watched it burn to ash.
The basement door at the top of the stairs opened, sending golden light down the steps, highlighting the worn treads. “Stella?”
She jumped to her feet, swiped at her wet cheeks, and slammed the furnace door shut, singeing the skin on her fingertips. The fire hissed and swelled inside its metal cage. She shook out her hand, trying to cool her fingers, and winced. “Be right up,” she called.
The first few steps creaked as Arnold Cohen, the head librarian, descended halfway. “Should I ask why you’re using the furnace? Don’t look so shocked. A few of the windows are open, and it looks like I have a fog machine going upstairs in the historical stacks.”
Stella glanced over her shoulder at the furnace before meeting Arnie at the staircase. She cleared her throat. “I was testing hypotheses.”
His thick, graying eyebrows lifted. “And?”
Stella gripped the handrail and tugged herself up the first few steps. The old wood groaned in resonance with her heart. “The results are disappointing.”
Behind his glasses, Arnie’s dark, deep-set eyes watched her, studied her. “You can’t burn away the past.”
She squeezed the railing harder. The nape of her neck tingled as though embers clung to her skin. Her exhalation shuddered in the space between them, rippling through the air. “I wish I had a shovel to dig it out then.”
“If you could have taken the easy way, what would you have learned? Nothing.”
Stella scowled. “And what have I learned, Arnie?”
“How to handle your heart differently next time.” Arnie turned and ascended the stairs. “It didn’t escape me that you carried yourjournal down here and yet you’re not returning with it. I assume you want me to keep it a secret from the books upstairs that you tossed one of their brethren to the flames.”
Stella followed him up and switched off the basement light. A flickering glow quivered across the darkened concrete floor and caught her attention. Words formed in the cavorting shadows.Goodbye. Forget. Next time.There would be nonext timefor how to handle her heart; as far as she was concerned, her heart was a dead, useless thing taking up space in her chest. She closed and locked the basement door.
Stella had opened the Blue Sky Valley Public Library that morning, having no idea that she’d sneak away that afternoon to burn her journal. Just after lunch, a visitor had wandered in.
The older woman, probably in her mid-sixties, had approached Stella at the circulation desk. She was looking for a self-help book, specifically one covering the topic of releasing the past. When they arrived at the section, Stella pointed out a few books that might be of interest, but the woman didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Stella asked, sensing the woman’s hesitation.
