Chapter Seventeen

 

 

chapter

SEVENTEEN

 

 

Isobel didn’t return to the library for the rest of the day. At first, I was okay with her absence. I mean, hell, I needed a moment to regroup, too.

I’d kissed her. Things had changed. We’d probably never get back to the place we used to be. And this new direction could either lead somewhere very good, or very bad. So, yeah, it was scary. I got that. I understood her need for a moment to herself.

Maybe even an hour or two to her herself.

But when four o’clock rolled around, it was time for me to leave, and she’d never reappeared. I had tried to place as many of her books on the shelves as possible, hoping I didn’t put something somewhere she didn’t want it to go, but it just felt all wrong doing it by myself. We’d started working on this together; we should’ve finished together.

The worst of it came the next morning at seven, when she didn’t show up at the lake to run. I stood on the running trail, our running trail, hands on m