Page 20 of Lessons in Heartbreak

No, I couldn’t hold it in my grasp forever; I couldn’t lock it in a box for safekeeping. But it would still be mine. Those experiences and memories couldn’t be taken away by anyone, no matter what.

If I closed my eyes and thought about what knowledge looked like, it was a tidy stack of shiny gold coins that locked together. Like building blocks. The more of those coins in your possession, the more valuable they became. It was a cumulative thing, each one building upon the one before. In my head, I wanted those coins to build something big and grand and beautiful that I could study and admire.

Right now, there was nothing but a flimsy deck of cards instead—at least when it came to this particular subject of study. A gentle breeze would knock it right over, and there was nothing I could do about that.

Slumping at my desk, I covered my face with my hands. “I’m not cut out for this. For any of it. I’m just going to die alone in my little house. I’ll probably get some cats and learn how to knit and bake myself cupcakes because there’s no one around me to eat them.”

She clucked her tongue. “Well, aren’t we one giant cliché, huh? First, Bruiser would be terrified of those cats, and you don’t like them anyway.”

“I don’t. They freak me out.”

Bruiser lifted his head from where he lay at my feet, letting out a commiserating groan as he flopped onto his side to get comfortable. Lauren smiled.

“You tried knitting once, and you got very angry.”

I sighed. “I did. Making all those little loops made me want to stab someone.” I gave her a meaningful look. “But I couldn’t because I live alone.”

Lauren rounded my desk, giving me a consoling pat on the back. “You’ll get it figured out, shorty.”

At the nickname, I leveled a glare in her direction. All it managed to do was make her laugh, which said more about my glare than it did Lauren.

Before she left my office, she snapped her fingers. “Oh, I got a call from the city offices while you were doing story hour earlier.”

Immediately, I sat up in my chair. “And?”

Her face bent in a grimace. “Not good news. The property will start taking offers in the next couple weeks. Sheila told me there are two real estate developers interested.”

“Damn it,” I whispered, disappointment anchoring somewhere deep in my belly. On the far wall of my office were all the renders I’d had drawn up to present to the board of directors. They loved them. But, as always, it wasn’t a matter of them liking my ideas; it was a matter of money.

For years, I’d been planning what we could do to the land surrounding the library once it went up for sale. The old man who’d owned it had passed away a few months earlier, and it took a while for his kids to decide what they wanted to do. I’d reached out more than once, telling them about the nature path, the butterfly garden, how we could highlight Colorado artists with small sculptures and interactive features for kids and families.

Make it something memorable and wonderful. A legacy that would outlive me, that was for sure.

It was the kind of thing that kids remembered as they got older, that they wanted to bring their kids back to. I thought of the two little boys with their buckets, searching for minnows in the creek, and it took everything in me to swallow my disappointment.

Lauren gave me a tiny wink. “Not over yet. We’ll raise a lot of money from the fair next week.”

“I know we will.” I conjured a smile, but based on the slight arch to Lo’s eyebrow, it wasn’t a very believable one.

Kenny—one of our college-age employees—popped his head into my office. “Ruby? There’s someone out here asking for you.”

There was a feverish look in his eyes that had me narrowing mine. “Who?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said gravely.

Lauren brushed past him and looked out into the main area of the library, her mouth falling open. “Is that ... Griffin King?” she whispered. “Do you know Griffin King?”

Son of a biscuit. My eyes pinched shut, and I took a deep breath. I should’ve known he wouldn’t just go away.

Still seated at my desk, I couldn’t see out into the library, so I stood and glanced through the windows lining the side of my office. When I caught sight of him, a nervous swirling kicked off in my stomach, seeping out through all four limbs, making my fingertips tingle.

It wasn’t even fair.

People shouldn’t look like him and be able to just ... walk around for anyone to see. This was a library, for crying out loud.

Today, he was wearing a sinfully tight white T-shirt and a black hat turned backward on his head. His long, thick legs were covered in dark joggers that hugged his tree-trunk thighs.

“Sort of,” I hedged. “When I was younger, he and his family lived in the house behind mine.”

---