The Reading List(14)
Aidan stayed silent. He was wiping down the surfaces, but they were already spotless.
As the front door slammed shut behind her, Leilah’s voice rang out in Aleisha’s head: ‘This is my house, not yours!’ Her standard comeback.
She had nowhere to go, but nowhere was better than home.
Without thinking too much, she just let her feet lead her. She walked, slowly, passed the market stalls being set up, ignoring the fruit sellers shouting things at her, prices, unbelievable prices, that never sucked her in. She wandered past kids already out on their bikes, cycling across the road without looking, shouting at their friends behind them, turning their heads a full 180 degrees to see their mates, wobbling on the handlebars.
With each step down Ealing Road, then along the high road, she edged further and further away from home. With each step, she felt her heartbeat slow. She didn’t know where she was going, not really, until the bend in the road straightened, and there it was, like a little Tudor cottage, looking thoroughly out of place.
Of course her subconscious would bring her here: the library. The only place where she knew she could just be quiet, alone, for a little while. Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea. If books actually could let her escape, reading was at least cheaper than getting shit-faced.
Goody-two-shoes Kyle was on the front desk today. Aleisha nodded to him in greeting as she walked through the library doors, ignored the surprise written all over his face, and started to wander the aisles. She went to the crime/thriller section, wondering if Crime Thriller guy’s words would impart some kind of inspiration. She watched the spines, sparkling in the sunlight, shimmering in their plastic covers. She let her fingertips graze each book, but she didn’t pull anything from the shelves. Eventually, the reds, blues, yellows of the spines merged into one big book mass, and nothing made sense to her. The library was silent, but it rang in her ears. The words jumped out – ‘Death’ ‘Murder’, ‘Killer’ – as well as softer, creepier titles like ‘Watching You’ … It was all getting a bit much. How did he do this? How did he feel chilled here, in this space, with these words bearing down on him? She tapped her finger on the side of her leg, trying to look calm, trying to look as if she knew what the hell she was doing.
Her phone buzzed.
It was the WhatsApp group again: they had set it up when they were 14, but Aleisha hadn’t spoken in the group in weeks. No one had noticed. Three of them were tagged in the last message from Mia. Once upon a time, Mia had been Aleisha’s very best friend.
@Beth @Lola @Kacey you at home? Wna do something tonight?
The other two girls, Jenna and Shreya, were on holiday – they’d been relentlessly sending poolside pictures from Ayia Napa and Croatia.
The rejection still stung Aleisha, even after months and months of her making up excuses to her friends. She was known to bow out last minute due to illness, food poisoning, migraines, missing birthday dinners or gatherings in the park. But being flaky was easier than telling the truth: she didn’t want them to know her mum was mad. They’d never understand.
Beth, Lola, Kacey, even Jenna, all responded immediately.
Ping. Buzz. I’m around, let’s do something
Ping. Buzz. Missing u girls, have fun without me. Ill b there in spirit vodka
Ping. Buzz. Yh where shall we go?
As Aleisha stood in the library, the walls of books began to close in on her, the spines growing larger, heavier. She watched her friends continue their lives without her. Message after message. Book after book. She didn’t exist any more. Emojis, dancing girl, high fives, thumbs up. Happy. They were all happy. They didn’t have anything else to worry about. It was summer, after all. The future stretched ahead. The best time of their lives.
She pushed herself through the stacks of shelves into the clearing beyond. She needed to breathe again, to draw oxygen deep into her lungs. She turned her phone over in her palm and her eyes blurred at her watermelon phone case.
Between the melons, she spotted the reading list poking through.
There it was again. That book. The first book on the list. To Kill a Mockingbird. The image of Leilah throwing her head back in glee rushed in, her screams and shouts this morning, her sobbing through the night. Aidan’s eyes, dark rims, unable to give her any words of comfort. Her head was driving her crazy and she needed to get away, leave Wembley, leave her family, leave everything. But still, could a book work those kinds of miracles? At least it was a place to start.
She found a chair – the Crime Thriller guy’s chair, actually – and sank into it, shoving her phone into her bag. The chair was worn in places, the arms had started to fray, but it was comfortable. The sun illuminated the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird. If she was going to do this, it felt like the right kind of position, the right view, the right environment, to turn to Chapter One and begin. But just as she was about to settle in, psyching herself for full immersion, Kyle’s very loud, very patronizing tone pierced her silence. He was dealing with another irrational, irrelevant and annoying customer who had phoned in – but at least that was better than dealing with the irrational, irrelevant, annoying customers in real life. What had Aidan loved about this job so much?
‘No, sir. I think I will have to charge you for the book, if you removed it from the premises without checking it out.’
Kyle’s brows knotted into a frown.
‘Sorry, sir, could you repeat that just a little more slowly for me please?’ And after a beat, ‘Do you have a library card?’