Hold My Place by Cassondra Windwalker

Author:Cassondra Windwalker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Spot Books
Published: 2021-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The next morning, I slipped Octavia’s photo book into my backpack before filling my thermos of steaming black tea and heading to work. It was getting harder and harder to leave the house. I wasn’t sure why, exactly. I wasn’t like so many people who quietly loathed their jobs and lived in simmering misery. I didn’t spend my days wondering what I should be doing with my life and making half-hearted noises about needing to be more fulfilled.

What more could I want than to spend my days among books? And all the best people wander the stacks. Not those days, of course, but I delighted myself creating personalities and backstories to accompany every list of book requests I filled. I felt like an apothecary to sorcerers, dedicating my days to dispensing all the rare ingredients they required for their spells. Who knew what magic would ensue from the books they read?

All this only made my new malaise that much stranger. I dreaded leaving Edgar behind, and every moment away, my spirit strained toward home. It was … odd. Wanting to be with a new husband was normal enough, I thought, but I’d never been one of those women who lose all sense of self and interest in friends because some man has a knee-knocker of a kiss. Maybe it wasn’t Edgar at all? Maybe I was only infected with some of the wretched dejection the whole world was suffering. This new indolence, whatever its impetus, threatened to treacle all my limbs, and every day I struggled against it less. But today Evan would finally be back at work for the first time since the lockdowns began, and I was eager to see him again.

No hugs for us, of course. Now I wasn’t working alone anymore, I was wearing a mask—dark gray cotton with the lower half of a grinning skull emblazoned in black. Evan’s, unsurprisingly, was a plain navy blue, an unassuming complement to his white polo shirt and blue jeans. Sweet vanilla Evan. We waved foolishly at each other in the parking lot and walked in together, a safe distance apart.

“So let me see it,” he insisted as soon as we’d put our lunches away and switched on the lights.

For a second, I stared at him blankly, wondering how he could have known about the photo book in my bag.

“The ring,” he exclaimed impatiently. “Come on. It can’t be like you’ve had many chances to show it off. I still can’t believe you up and got married to a stranger I hadn’t approved of during quarantine. You do know everyone else is getting divorced, don’t you?”

I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a strict nonconformist.”

I waggled my fingers at him with forced cheer.

The ring.

I haven’t mentioned it, because it’s weirdly uncomfortable. It’s not that the rings aren’t nice enough. Quite the opposite. The wedding ring was a wide matte polished band of soft, burnished yellow gold. The engagement ring beneath it sported two gleaming sapphires offset around a large, heavy pearl.

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