Page 129 of Battle of the Bookstores

Hours later, whenI head back toward the store, the sun is setting and I’m exhausted—everything took much longer than expected, and now I’m running late. I’ve been practicing what to say to Ryan, to convince him to accept Xander’s offer andstay with me. I’m not sure I have the right words, but at least I’m allowing myself to hope. That feels like a pretty big deal.

I round the final corner to the store, and the windows are dark.

My heart crashes and shatters. He’s not here. He didn’t come.

Tears fill my eyes. I imagine him driving to Provincetown, away from me and this bookstore where all my memories will forever be filled with him. If that’s truly what he wants, then I’ll have to accept it. We’ll visit each other as often as we can, talk on the phone every night, text during the day. We’ll make it work, somehow.

Even still, it feels like a piece of my heart has been torn away. My chest aches and I try to hold in a sob—though I would’ve thought I’d cried enough today. I head into the bookstore to find a corner where I can sit and weep before heading home. There’s a warm glow inside—Cinderella must have left a lamp on.

Only when I unlock the door and step inside, I realize it’s not a lamp.

Candles cover every surface—the shelves and tables, even the floor. I’m awestruck, slowly turning in a circle, drinking in the magical sight of candlelight glinting off the spines of books.

The spark of hope I’ve carefully tended roars to life, a vibrant flame inside me. This has to be good, right? Not even Ryan Lawson would do something this wonderful if he didn’t mean it.

I step closer to one of the candles, safely contained in a jar, and notice that there’s an open book right next to it. A line on the page has been highlighted.

“He now viewed a successful relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had to offer and had chosen to value it as well.”

Confused, I blink at the cover.A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara. I might’ve mentioned this book to Ryan—or rather, RJ—but what is it doing here, on his side of the store, with this obscure passage highlighted?

Then I notice another open book on the next shelf, also illuminated by a candle, and as I come closer, I see a line highlighted here, too.

“We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.”

I lift the cover:A Moveable Feastby Ernest Hemingway. I read this for an Honors seminar focused on Hemingway’s work, junior year of college. I loved it, but I’ve never mentioned it to Ryan, either in person or online.

On the next shelf, there’s another: “I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”Great Expectations, Charles Dickens. My favorite book from AP English.

Another: “The moment I saw her, a part of me walked out of my body and wrapped itself around her. And there it still remains.”The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy. Jerome recommended it to me my first year working for him.

Footsteps echo, and I look up to see Ryan, emerging from the back room, filling the doorway. He’s wearing his tortoiseshell glasses and a gray cardigan, his hair falling across his forehead, Persephone curled up in his arms.

“Ryan,” I breathe. “What is all this?”

“It’s my grand gesture.” His voice holds so much regret and gentleness that my eyes fill with tears.

“Your what?”

“It’s, uh, something people do in romance novels? I’m not sure what characters do in literary fiction when they make a massive mistake.”

“Usually they dig themselves into a deeper hole until their entire world falls apart.”

His lips quirk in a smile. “Well, lucky for us, I don’t read many of those books.”

I let out a shocked laugh, looking around at the highlighted passages. “But—what are these?”

“You don’t recognize them?” He looks concerned.

“I do, but—”

I glance at another open book, the highlighted words: “To love or have loved, that is enough.” I don’t even need to look at the cover; I know that one by heart.Les Misérables, the book I stubbornly read in its unabridged form, all fourteen hundred pages of it.

“Why are these here?”

Ryan sets Persephone down and walks over to me. “I’ve been tackling all the books on your Favorites shelf on BookFriends. Some of them are ridiculously long, so I’ve been listening to them, and I’m not through all of them yet, but…” He shrugs. “I’m trying.”

A lump forms in my throat. All those times I saw him with earbuds in, I assumed he was listening to some steamy romance. “You’re readingmyfavorite books?”

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