Unthinkable by Anna Hill

Author:Anna Hill [Hill, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General
Publisher: BOOK VINE PRESS
Published: 2022-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

10.

Rare Conditions

The reading room in the University of Washington’s library looks more like a church. Several rows of tables stretch out horizontally on either side like pews, and the overhanging lights look like they should have incense burning inside. Every few feet, there are long, thin windows showing the gray afternoon outside, and I think I’ve actually spent more time staring at the rivulets of rain running down the glass than at the book I chose over an hour ago.

The book spread out in front of me—Rare Conditions and Disorders by Doctor Garland Van Thorp—would have my full attention on any other day, but my mind has been a cocktail of worry and self-loathing for the last week. Upon waking this morning for the first day back at work after the fall break, my initial feeling was one of fear. So much so I had the phone in my hand and my finger hovering over Professor Willis’s number for five minutes before I decided not to call in sick.

So far, I have managed to avoid Michael, but running into him is an inevitability. Even with my basic knowledge of human interaction and relationships, I know the longer I leave it, the more awkward and damaging my childish behavior at his apartment will become. I had hoped he would call or text me at some stage during the week, but my phone only buzzed twice. The first was another message from Mother telling me that someone who doesn’t learn from their mistakes is a fool, and the second from Leah telling me the same thing in slightly less harsh words.

Why my sister is suddenly acting cold toward me, I have no idea, and if I hadn’t made such a fool of myself with Michael, I might have had the energy and confidence to drive out to see her. Instead, I only left the apartment one more time after my impromptu coffee with Jake, and only because I was completely out of food and my stomach was growling.

I take my eyes away from the running raindrops and scan the vast reading room. At least 20 students are engrossed in some form of literature, their heads bowed intently. Every so often, one of them looks up for a moment as if something they’ve just read confuses them or strikes a chord, and then they dive back into their studies.

Reading books on psychology has become a hobby of mine in the last year or so, ever since Michael loaned me a thesis on the subject around the time we first became friends. Even though he teaches Religious Studies, he often blends in elements of his hypothesis with psychological reasoning, trying to tap into the thinking of the people who came before and those who use religion as a way of mental healing and spirituality.

Wandering into the college library was only a way of avoiding Michael, I know, yet picking a book on psychology was probably a subconscious way of keeping him close. Thinking of

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