The page edges of the closed book were stamped with the name of the college library.
Sam hadn't been to the library (any library) in a long time. She'd heard about the book in American Counter-Cultural Identity 301 during her junior term of college. It was about a middle-class girl from Minnesota, graduating high school in the mid-1960’s and the first of her family to attend college. That rough description stuck in Sam’s mind for nearly a year before she checked it from the library. She read the first fifty-odd pages, but was side-tracked and forgot about the book.
She held it until graduation, then made the decision to just keep it. She still got her diploma, and in the months that followed, a few fine letters that she ignored. After two years, the fine letters suddenly stopped. She suspected that her mother had paid them off without her knowing, but Sam never asked, lest she be required to admit that she'd deliberately stolen a library book.
Over the next few years, she more or less forgot about it. She read other books, quicker reads. She got a full time job, and moved to her own apartment in the city. She got a boyfriend, then got rid of him, then another that got rid of her. She dated casually, quit her job, and got another.
So, now, eight years after graduation, throwing objects around the house in her bag – a wallet, a phone, some keys, a piece of fruit – her eyes glance over the bookshelf and her fingers wrap around it, followed by the slam of her apartment door – a commuter’s exit. When she sits on the subway, she finds the bookmark where she'd left off eight years before. Sam debates starting over, then decides against it.
It was the first night of living in the girls’ dorm at school, and the narrator was nervous and excited at the same time. She recalled reading the page as if she’d put the book down yesterday. She recalled a recognition for the exhiliaration the narrator felt. How it mirrored Sam’s own excitement upon entering college.
But this feeling was foreign to Sam now, who'd been living alone for eight years and though she'd once craved the isolation, now loathed it, yet couldn't fathom living without it.
(Jan 27, 2017)
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