He gave the door leading to the archives a worried look. “I’ll buzz you back. Just don’t tell anybody.”
I snorted. What had she done to this poor guy that he was willing to let a complete stranger into the archives unsupervised?
“There are cameras. We’ll prosecute to the fullest extent of the law if you touch or damage anything,” he added.
The door buzzed.
“Consider me warned.”
I shivered as I entered the archives. The air was cooler than in the rest of the library.
It was easy to find Caroline. She was hunched over a book as long as my arm and almost as thick as my torso. She handled the pages with white gloves, flipping them with the utmost of care. Her curly blond hair was scraped back from her face into a messy bun.
“I really don’t understand what you find so interesting in those things.”
Her shoulders tensed.
I waited.
She slid her hands out from under the page she was handling and sat back in her chair. Moving efficiently, she stripped off her gloves and pulled a pair of black rimmed glasses from her face, setting them onto the table next to her.
I fidgeted in the silence.
She made me wait as she tidied up her workspace. Only when everything was in its exact spot and perfectly lined up did she turn.
Her face was calm as she regarded me, her girl-next-door looks making her appear the same as she had the day I’d signed up for the Army. I’d always envied her everyday beauty, the kind that was just there and looked good at any age. Even when we’d been in middle school, she’d been the one all the boys had liked. I wasn’t insecure about my looks now, but I had been back then. It’d taken over a decade to grow into all my angles.
“I’m waiting,” she said.
I stuck my hands in my pocket. “Don’t know what for.”
She arched one eyebrow and gave me a cool smile. “Then you can let yourself out, and I can get back to examining this fifteenth century manuscript.”
She started to turn back to her work.
“I’m not apologizing,” I snapped. “I did nothing wrong. It’s my life and joining the military was the best decision I could make at that time.”
She spun back around, her calm expression deteriorating enough to leave anger and disappointment in its place. “Is that what you think this is about?”
“What else could it be? You made it perfectly clear what you thought when I left.”
“Jesus, Lena. You haven’t bothered talking to me in four years.”
“You could have reached out. I’m not the one who threw a bitch fit when I decided to become a soldier.”
“And look how well that ended up. How did the intervention go? Your parents manage to talk you into getting help?”
I drew back, stung. I hadn’t realized Mom reached out to her.
Perhaps it had been a mistake coming here. I didn’t think she’d be this angry after all these years. We’d been best friends once. She’d had trouble relating to people, and her ability to say precisely the wrong thing at exactly the right time had made it difficult for her in high school and undergrad. She was so smart, with an IQ that was off the charts, and hadn’t bothered with people she thought were a waste of time. I never figured out why she started talking to me. We shouldn’t have gotten along, but we did until we didn’t.
I thought time would help bridge some of the distance that had built between us. Obviously not.
She sighed, sounding weary. “What do you want? I know you want something. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“I need your help researching something.”
She stared at me, her eyebrows rising. “You’re kidding me.”
