By Your Side(4)

The second he left me alone, I ran back down the stairs and past the glass doors. If he was armed, I wanted to be too.

I tucked myself behind a shelf in the back stacks. My breath was heavy and uneven and I couldn’t see a thing. I reached in front of me and grabbed the biggest book I could find. Worst-case scenario, I could hit him over the head with it.

“Hello?” he said from across the room.

“Don’t come any closer.”

“Where are you?”

“It doesn’t matter. You want to talk? Talk.” If I acted tough, maybe he’d think I was.

His voice became louder, clearer, so he must’ve been walking toward me. “There’s no reason to be scared of me.”

Why couldn’t he just stay across the room? We didn’t have to be within spitting distance to talk.

As I went to take a step back, my knee hit the shelf and one book and then another slid to the ground with a thud. I tightened my grip on the book I held and took off for the door. He was faster, though, and cut me off. I held the book over my head.

“Stop,” I said.

He took a step closer. I threw the book at him. He dodged it. I picked up another from a nearby shelf and threw it. It hit his shoulder.

He held his hands over his head. “Really?”

“I already called the cops,” I said.

He cussed.

I threw another book. “So just leave me alone. They’ll be here any second.”

We were closer now, one of the lamps I’d turned on earlier glowing to our right. That’s when I realized I recognized him.

I gasped. “Dax?”

“Do I know you?”

I must’ve still been in the shadows.

In relief, I lowered the book I held. Dax Miller wouldn’t have been my first choice of guys I’d want to be locked in a library with. In fact, if I could choose any guy from my high school, he probably would’ve been the last. His reputation wasn’t exactly stellar. There were stories about him. Lots of stories. But he wasn’t a stranger. And I wasn’t scared of him, so I immediately relaxed. “You go to my school.”

I wasn’t sure he knew me like most people at school did. I was on yearbook and was constantly snapping pictures so I was everywhere all the time. It was hard not to be well known when I had to be involved in so many events. But I’d never taken his picture. He wasn’t involved in anything. Well, at least not anything school-sponsored.

I took a small step forward, into the soft glow of lamplight, so he could see me more clearly.

Recognition crossed his face as he took me in, from my shoulder-length light-brown hair to my black wedge boots, then back up to my eyes. He didn’t seem to like what he saw. “Did you really call the cops?”

“No.” I ran my hands over my pockets. “I don’t have a phone.”

His eyes skimmed over my pockets as if he didn’t believe me, then he nodded once and headed toward the bag he’d dropped next to a chair.

I followed after him. “Do you?”

“Do I what?” He unzipped his bag.

“Have a phone.”

“No, I don’t.”

I stared at his bag, not sure he was telling the truth. “I just need to call my parents. They’re probably worried sick about me. Nobody knows where I am.” At least that’s what I was assuming since nobody had come back. “I would just use it to tell them where I am.”

He pulled a sleeping bag from his duffel and spread it on the floor. “I don’t have a phone.”

He brought a sleeping bag to the library? He wasn’t trapped here like me. He’d planned on staying all along? “But you’re not homeless,” I said.

“I never said I was.”

“Why are you here?” I asked.

He crawled into his sleeping bag and then reached up and turned out the light.

“Why were you worried about me calling the cops anyway? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Can you keep it down? I’m trying to sleep.”

If my whole body didn’t feel like Jell-O I might’ve kicked him, but instead I stumbled to a chair, sat down, and put my head on my knees. This shouldn’t have surprised me. Dax was secretive at school, a loner—why would I expect him to tell me his life story now?

It didn’t matter. It was fine. I’d be fine. At least I’d established Dax wasn’t trying to kill me or hurt me. Even though Dax was . . . well, Dax . . . it was better not being trapped here alone. And he had to have a phone in that big bag of his. He’d brought a sleeping bag, after all. When he went to sleep, I’d look through his stuff and find it. Now that I had a game plan I felt much better.

My chest slowly relaxed, relieving my burning lungs. This was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to me. It might even be a funny story later. Much later, when I was home with my parents and in my own bed with my nice warm comforter.

It was cold in here.

I stretched and then laid my head on the arm of the chair, pretending to go to sleep. I wasn’t sure if he could see me or if he was even watching, but I wanted him to think I was sleeping. Then, when I was sure he was out, I’d find his phone, call home, and this would all be over.

The clock on the wall read 3:20. My eyes ached from being awake for so long. I wondered what my friends were doing. What Jeff was doing. I’d known Jeff since freshman year, liked him since junior year, and now, in my senior year, had decided it was now or never. We’d both be going away to school the following year, and before we left I’d wanted to see if the tension that hummed beneath the surface whenever he was around would translate into a good relationship.