“Where are you going?”
I turn to find Rudra standing at the foot of the stairs, a CocoCart cup in his hand.
“Upstairs,” I say, frowning. It’s not like our twenty minutes are up—I have fifteen to spare. “To check out the books.”
“It doesn’t look safe,” Rudra says. “There’s barely any light up there.”
“It’s just books.” I turn back to the towers of books. “I’ll be fine. I have my phone.”
I resume walking up the stairs, eyes widening as I spot the collection on the floor above. Gosh, how many books are up here? That’s when I hear a scuffle, and when I look back, Rudra’s standing right behind me.
I nearly jump out of my skin. My foot catches on one of the book piles, and I trip, barely avoiding falling flat on my face. But Rudra grabs my arm just in time, veryIshqbaaazstyle (don’t judge me, I watched the show only because of my mom) and pulls me up.
Fortunately, I manage to save the books from being splashed by my coffee. Unfortunately, I drop my cup of masala corn in the process. I watch in horror as the corn spills all over the stairs, rivulets of red-stained, masala-filled juice running toward the stacks.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I gasp, setting my coffee on the ground, pulling the packet of wet wipes out of my pocket.
Rudra crouches down and helps me out. Luckily, we get thestaircase clean and the corn picked up before the shopkeeper catches us.
“You startled me,” I say, looking down at my cup of corn forlornly.
“I’m sorry,” Rudra says, and he genuinely sounds apologetic as he rubs the back of his neck. “I thought it’d be better if I just went with you.”
“Why aren’t you with Priti?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Rudra narrows his gaze. “We’re not attached at the hip.”
“No, I mean, is she okay on her own?”
“She’s in a brightly lit food court with dozens of other people loitering about.”
I choose to not say anything to that; instead, I pick up my coffee cup and climb the last few stairs. Rudra follows me closely, and I quickly forget my disappointment from having dropped my corn when I reach the second floor.
“Holy shit.”
My jaw is practically sweeping the ground. Rudra’s hands fall out of his pockets as we step into what looks like the biggest book warehouse I’ve ever seen, piled with thousands of paperbacks and hardbacks. Flickering white lights hum above us, filling the silence of the space. It’s like a thrift bookstore, but ten times the scale. I rush to the first table and grab a title I recognize, bringing it to my nose and sniffing deeply.
Iloveit. It’s so musty and new yet old at the same time.
I never imagined this being up here. It’s like a whole other world. A book dimension with its portal at the base of the staircase. That I have only ten minutes left, probably less, is a crime!
I zigzag between the tables, running my fingers along covers and embossing. My fingertips are collecting dust, but I don’t care. I glance behind me once to find Rudra walking at a much slower pace,stroking the spines with such tenderness it’s as if he’s afraid they’ll crumble underneath his touch.
The lights at the far end of the warehouse are turned off, so it gets darker as we move, and I find myself being grateful he came along, because I do feel safer. I turn on my phone’s flashlight and dodge through the tables to the walls lined with bookshelves.
“I hope the bookstores in Baltimore are this big,” I say as Rudra comes up to stand next to me. I tend to ramble about books without caring who I’m rambling to, but it’s his fault he followed me up here. He walked right into it. “I didn’t get to see much of the city when I was visiting the college campus.”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Rudra says, plucking a volume off the shelves and combing through it. “Though I’m sure becoming a doctor is going to keep you more than a little busy.”
“How do you know that?” My eyes widen in surprise. “The doctor thing, I mean.”
“You’ve mentioned wanting to be on the premed track before.” Rudra says, ducking his head back down to the book. He follows the words with his fingers as he reads them—one of my friends who’s dyslexic does the same thing. They say it makes it easier for them to focus on the letters on the page.
He flips a page before turning the book over to read the back. He’s not that tall, I notice now that he’s standing right next to me. I’m about five foot three, and he looks like he could be five foot seven or five foot eight, max. Priti’s probably just an inch or so shorter than him.
As I watch him, my mind goes back to what he said. I can’t remember having mentioned my plans to him, so I’m assuming he overheard me speaking to my cousins. Not, like, eavesdropping, but during a group hangout, like the house party last night, wheneveryone was together. Was it something I said during one of those conversations—not knowing he was listening—that had given him such a poor impression of me?
“So I have a question,” I say, sipping on my coffee, “about what you said earlier. It’s kind of been nagging at me.”
