The thing is that I knew.
Calum was up ahead, carrying books. We were moving everything that the fire had spared. The beautiful old library lay, with its bones exposed to the sky. The fire had taken its spirit but something of its soul remained and that’s what we were trying to salvage. Thousands of books, the heart of the place, had gone up in flames, but not all was lost.
I had a heavy load. So many that my eyes were half-hidden behind the precarious stack; I could hardly make out the path. I heard rather than felt the collision. The books swayed for a moment before they fell in a pile at my feet. The woman, girl really, that I’d barrelled into seemed relatively unharmed. She looked a little shocked, but her expression soon changed to a grin at the sight of my blood-red face.
“Let me help you.” She said. She seemed to fold, elegantly, in one fluid movement to kneel at my feet, and I being the idiot that I often am, simply let her do it.
“Here.” She offered, handing me a few. I balanced them on one of the benches that fringed the path; it was conveniently close. She was quick, nimble and delicate.
And I just knew, right away.
It didn’t take her too long. Soon she stood, brushing her hands together, then she took charge of the situation; dividing the load between us.
“I’m Hannah, by the way.” She threw this nugget at me over her shoulder, and charged after Calum without waiting for a response.
The new home for the rescued books was an unimposing affair; a square, inanimate brick building. Calum waited for us impatiently, shoving his weight, this way and that on unsteady legs. I’d made up time, beating Hannah to the finish line.
Calum and I watched Hannah, and her books. The moment seemed pivotal, and I know that Calum felt its gravity as keenly as I did. She approached us with breathless intent, framed by the backlit sun, all aglow.
I felt Calum’s reaction, I tried to ignore my own.
Hannah
We crossed from daylight into the dingy halls of the new library, together, as if we were a team. We stacked the books and Hannah sighed. A big, deep, breathy, sigh.
And I just knew.
Calum looked as if he’d been struck by the force of the gods. Lightning couldn’t have been as effective. Hannah looked like she’d seen the kingdom coming.
I knew.
The dorms, the parties, the beach escapes, they were all about Hannah. Hannah and Calum, and my heart bled.
Time revolved, and we evolved. Calum and Hannah, Hannah and Calum.
I’d lost my best friend.
Life was lonely, torturous, really.
I’d lost.
It’s so strange that the only thing I remember about that year is Calum and Hannah.
Somehow, I worked, I studied, we transferred all the surviving books.
I sat for my exams. They must’ve done the same.
Then the world changed. It changed.
The message is still pinned to my email inbox.
Calum
In the dead of night. Poor Calum; his car was found at the bottom of a steep, steep ditch.
Is there a God, I remember that that was all I could think of.
Hannah and Calum…and me.
I went to see her.
She was a wisp, a flimsy feather.
She clung to me and we cried. Fast tears, hot and humorless.
She was so needy, but I couldn’t.
I could not.
I just knew.
