Chapter Eight

Claire pushed the cart while quickly reading the signs attached at the top of the bookshelves, indicating each section. As someone who has been working at the library for almost half a year now, she was expected to have memorized the entire layout of the library and navigate through them easily. But for some reason, she still had to rely on the signs most of the time.

When she got to the history section, she grabbed the stack of history books from her cart and proceeded to arrange them on the shelves. The head librarian had assigned Katie to work at the counter today, so much to her dismay, and so she was stuck with shelving.

After arranging her stack of history books, she glanced at her wristwatch. Claire had an hour left before her shift is over.

“Claire”

She turned to look at Katie, waving at her from the counter. The library was quiet enough that her co-worker didn’t need to raise her voice to call her from a distance.

“Yeah?” she mumbled in reply, raising her eyebrows in question. When Katie gestured for her to come to the counter, she sighed in relief before pushing the cart aside to work on shelving the remaining books later.

“He says he’s bored”, Katie whispered, pointing a thumb over her shoulder.  “And he wants to leave already”

“This guy, really”, she sighed. She then glanced at Ethan sitting at a table near the counter, burying his face into his crossed arms. A stack of art books lay on his right-hand side while another book was left open on a book stand.

Ethan raised his head and caught Claire and Katie looking at him. Smiling, he waved a hand and mouthed Claire repeatedly. She thought he looked like a child who finally found his mother after being lost for a few hours.

Claire walked to his table. Knowing that the head librarian must be nearby, she didn’t take a seat.

“I thought you were picking me up”, she told him, her arms crossed. “Why are you here?”

“I just thought it’ll be nice to wait for you instead”, he shrugged. “Besides, I’m excited about our date”

“I didn’t ask you to wait for me to finish my shift” She then placed both of her hands on the table and leaned in a little to meet his line of vision. “And this is not a date. You just owe me, that’s all”

Ethan has been hanging out in the library since the beginning of her afternoon shift two hours ago. At first, he entertained himself with art books and she even saw him sketch for a while. But later on, he got exhausted, and then bored.

Now, he’s been pestering her to leave early.

“Nope”, he insisted and shook his head stubbornly. “I told you it’s a date. So it is a date, Claire”

Claire was starting to get used to his flirty façade, although oftentimes, she would still catch herself getting flustered and blushing.

“Oh, shut up”, she mumbled and turned to leave. “My shift ends in an hour. Feel free to leave and come back by then if you’re so bored”

Claire couldn’t help but notice that Ethan did dress up a little bit fancier today, although he does always dress a little bit more extra than anybody else. Today, he wore a beige turtle neck shirt under his coat paired with blue jeans and black leather shoes. Next to him, in her usual sweatshirt and jeans combo, Claire felt underdressed.

“I’m staying!” Ethan called out a tad too loud, earning himself a few annoyed stares from nearby readers.

Katie had been watching them the entire time, so when Claire passed by the counter to get back to her stacks of books waiting to be shelved, she asked, “Is he your boyfriend or something?”

“Hell no”

“Really?” Katie asked in surprise before glancing at Ethan trying to immerse himself with another book. “He looks cute”

“He’s not really my type”, she replied, shrugging.

“You sure? Can I have him then?”

Claire knew that Katie was joking— although her usual cheery voice masked any hint of sarcasm that she was trying to depict— since she was currently in a serious relationship and had seen her boyfriend pick her up after every shift.

“Yeah, help yourself”, she chuckled before heading back to the history aisle where she left her cart.

---

An hour and a half later, Claire found herself in a restaurant downtown. She told Ethan that she didn't really mind having dinner anywhere so he was the one who decided. Despite being a resident in Cartersville for seven years now, she had never tried this particular restaurant before since it was one of the fancier shops, and she never really liked the idea of spending a lot of money for a single meal.

But since Ethan promised to treat her tonight, she didn't mind.

“Have you been here before?”

“Nope", she shook her head. “I never really go out much"

“Wow", Ethan chuckled and rested his chin on his palm. “There's not a lot of restaurants here and yet there are still places that you haven't been to, huh"

“Yeah. Besides being poor, I don't really have the time"

He laughed at her bluntness. Just when he was about to reply, they were interrupted by the waiter who came to their table with a tray balanced with one hand. Wordlessly, their plates were placed on the table then the waiter left after a rehearsed enjoy your meal.

“So, Claire", Ethan started. “I feel like we've known each other for a while now, but I don't really know much about you"

“Yeah, that is true", she replied, brows raised while nodding in realization. “We do spend a lot of time together. But that's because I'm your tutor, so it makes sense that we barely know each other"

“Tell me something about yourself, then"

Claire fell silent for a moment, thinking about what to say. She felt like her life was just a series of unfortunate events—not exactly an ideal conversation material.

“Well, for starters…” she said. “My birthday is on January 1st"

“That's pretty cool!” he exclaimed, his eyes going saucers in amusement and his mouth forming a cute ‘o'. “That must've sucked for your mom, though. She had to spend a new year’s day in the hospital"

Claire realized that she never really thought about it like that. She placed a finger on her chin, “Yeah, that's true”

“Well, mine is on April 25th"

“Boring"

“I know. I wish I was born on Christmas or something" He sliced a piece out of his salmon before shoving it into his mouth. “Then the whole world would celebrate it"

“That kind of sounds weird"

“You wouldn't know", he argued, squinting his eyes in playful distaste and pointing his fork at her. “You're born on new year's day"

“Yeah yeah", she mumbled and waved him off with a hand.

“Do you have siblings?”

Claire instantly frowned at that question and a flash of a distant memory passed her mind. She turned her head to her right, avoiding his gaze. Not wanting to spoil the mood, she breathed in deeply and forced a smile on her face. She opened her mouth to reply but Ethan beat her to it.

“You know, I was expecting you to dress up at least a little bit for our date tonight”, he said.

She faced him and saw a flicker of worry in his eyes but it disappeared as fast as it came. Then upon realizing that the boy was teasing her again, she rolled her eyes at him.

“This isn’t a date, though”

“I told you that it is”

“Well, I never really agreed to that”, she argued before twirling pasta on her fork and shoving it into her mouth.

Ethan chuckled and grabbed a napkin. Then he leaned across the table and wiped her cheek where a little bit of sauce strayed. “You really need to eat more carefully”

Claire felt her pulse quicken, just as how she usually reacts to his flirty tactics. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears warmed up as she stared in surprise at Ethan’s face, which was dangerously close to hers. The boy smiled, revealing a dimple on his left cheek, and she snapped out of her thoughts. Dropping her fork, she slapped his hand away.

“And you really need to stop doing things like that”

Ethan laughed and moved to rest on his seat once again, much to her relief. For good measure, Claire grabbed a napkin and wiped her mouth. She was confused whether she was more embarrassed than flustered or it was the other way around.

“Yeah”, he replied and turned his attention to his plate, a sly smile still lingering on his lips. “As you wish”

“Really”, Claire sighed and looked away. She was certain that her face was still red and didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had an effect on her. “Just when I thought we were having a normal conversation for once”

The rest of the dinner passed by with Ethan constantly annoying her, but Claire, deep inside, admitted that it was actually enjoyable to be in his company outside their usual tutorial sessions. When he wasn’t trying to get on her nerves nor playfully making her flustered, they would talk about mostly anything that they could think of.

“Come on, I’ll take you home”

“Thanks”, she mumbled and grabbed her bag before following Ethan who was walking out to the parking lot. “This was a better experience than I expected”

Almost immediately after hearing her comment, he reached out and placed a hand on her waist before pulling her closer and whispering in her ear, “Are you telling me that you’re falling for me?”

Claire was surprised and a chill run down her spine. She didn’t like the feeling of his breath blowing in her ear. With a muffled shriek, she pushed him away will all her might.

“You pervert!”

“Wait”, he raised both hands in surrender. “Why am I a pervert?”

“Because you are!”

Ethan couldn’t help but laugh at her reaction. In a huff, she stomped her way to the restaurant’s exits with a still-laughing Ethan on her tail. But as the two were heading out, Claire spotted a familiar figure by the front desk, accompanied by two adults whom she assumed were her parents.

“Oh”, she murmured to herself, stopping in her tracks. “Stephanie?”

A few seconds later, Stephanie turned and spotted her. She raised a hand to wave and the corners of her lips tugged upward for a smile. “Claire! Fancy seeing you here”

She saw Stephanie whisper something to her companions followed by a series of nods before finally leaving, probably to look for a table. She then approached Claire with a friendly smile.

“You’re alone?”

“Oh, actually I’m with—“

Claire turned to her left and gestured a hand to Ethan to introduce him but she was caught off-guard upon seeing his expression. Ethan had a look of mixed anguish and sadness— she couldn’t decide which emotion was dominant over the other. Nonetheless, she never saw him like this before, and what’s even scarier was that he was looking straight at Stephanie.

“Ethan?” Stephanie seemed shocked as well, however, a second after, her smile was back.

Claire turned her head from side to side, alternatively looking at the two who were having a quite intense staring contest. “Umm, you two… know each other?”

“No”, Ethan answered before grabbing her wrist. “Let’s go”

“E-Ethan” She felt him pull her away from the situation, rather roughly. His grasp was tight enough that it hurt. They walked past Stephanie and headed towards the exit.

“Actually, yes”, Stephanie said, cheeriness evident in her voice. With this, Ethan abruptly stopped in his tracks, causing Claire to bump her nose on his back, but she turned around to face Stephanie anyway.

“We used to date”