The Library of Shadows

by Rachel Moore

Surprise and something softer. Like the first time someone remembered your favorite song or ordered you a chocolate shake because they knew you liked to dip your fries in it. The look of knowing someone and being known right back.

It’s a vulnerable thing to have, a body.”

“When you love someone, it’s like building a library and filling the shelves. It doesn’t matter how many years it’s been since Austen wrote Emma or Fitzgerald wrote This Side of Paradise. We can still pull them from the bookcases and dive back into the words, the same as the day they were written. All the years and memories are still right here, cataloged inside us.”

She kissed him, warm and sweet and soft, and she’d keep kissing him until their hair grayed, until their skin wrinkled, until dust gathered on the bookshelves. Eventually, they’d become nothing more than sun-faded ink, a final line in her favorite story, one she was no longer afraid to write.