Two of a kind

Chapter 1

Can I tell you a secret

The library was quiet. Everything took place as it should. The lighting in the room was dull much like the mood, footsteps were timed and accurate and uniform among the feet that possessed them, the clicking of keyboard keys from the librarian would be unnoticable if not for the silence - blending in swiftly to the symphony of books leaving shelves, chairs adjusting, pages flipping, occasionally there were a few decent chirps from the blue birds on the tree outside but other than that pure absolute stillness.

Bailey had arrived almost as if on cue. An odd occurrence in the midst of the irritating silence that encompassed the room and just like everyone else in the room, the regularity and coordination of everything and everyone choked her. Except for bailey the air was nearly unbreathable, she walked in and somehow had instantly managed to break the order and effortless discipline. Her steps were too fast and did not rhyme with the steps of everyone else, everyone seemed to watch her as her slender legs lifted and lowered on the ridiculously clean floor tiles and Realizing she looked as out of place as she felt, she retreated immediately, fast and unrythmic as she could into the steady shelter of the book shelves. She lodged herself between the historical books, and felt safe in it's old and dusty covers and pages. She was sheltered once more, she was invisible. Shielded from the judgemental looking eyes of the world, and though she much preferred her solitude she now seemed as ancient and irrelevant as the biographies she surrounded her self with, but she was alive and they were not. So even in the midst of inanimate objects bailey was outlandish and as she stared bleakly into the covers of books, avoiding careful stares from the people that passed by her she realized she could no longer stand the normality of the things encircling her. She needed to do something. Write something.

She removed a book from the shelf and the now hollow and empty sector where the book had once been gave room for her to view upon someone else who looked as effortlessly out of place as she had. He was tall, easily the tallest guy in the library she presumed and his restless turning and twitching and tapping of his boots made her realize just as much as she did he wanted to be invisible. Bailey could only see his back, he was turned away from her facing the rack of books before him. She peered through the hole hoping for a better view. She shot a glance at his hair. His hair was pitch black, dark as night and ruffled along his head. His shoulders were broad and she strained to see the tract of muscle that displayed itself on his tight fitted shirt. She wished desperately to see his face. She could not.

He was anxious and seemed to turn to every direction watching for something. His hand reached forward for a book and he turned sideways again twice before grabbing it. Miraculously bailey could see the cover. Jane Eyre. He opened it and read aloud. The pitch of his voice was purposely-bailey suspected, low enough not to attract any attention but still only barely below a whisper. Baily heard him though and was stunned and mesmerized by the fluency of his reading. The way he read with such vigour and passion, the steadiness of his voice, the weight of his words, how easily poetry flew from his lips. Bailey had never seen reading so, so... Intently and at the same time aimed at accomplishing nothing at all, like he'd been reading for years. He held the book with so much certainty and spoke with so much poise and pure elegance. His words ignited something in her and she could no longer bear to simply stand idly and listen. Her hands seemed to move without her consent and her remaining body parts joined eagerly and in the heat of the spur of passion, she ripped a page out of the back of the book she'd been holding, retrieved a pen from her pocket and began penning a note.

Can I tell you a secret

She wrote or rather relenquished the only thought on her mind into the paper and when she was done she set the book aside and folded the note with a little too much determination- like it was not something meant to be opened and read but closed and locked away forever. Instinctively, she looked beside her and then behind her, lest anyone had seen her writing or noticed the note in her hand. When she was sure there was no one she slipped the hole silently through the hole she'd been spying with and a pushed a book onto the floor to get his attention. As she'd anticipated, he turned immediately to a small piece of paper on the floor and the biography of benjamin franklin. She moved a hair away from the hole when she heard his footsteps approaching towards the mess she'd created. He ignored the book beside it and picked up the note and opened it and read it - not aloud this time but with the same astonishment and surprise as bailey when she'd heard him read. Her words and writing dumbfounded him.

Can I tell you a secret

I believe in love

He stared at it for a long time and Bailey's intestines twisted. As if she'd just gotten hold of her senses, she began to rethink her course of actions and instantly regretted it. What had she been thinking? Feeling? There was no time to answer as her thoughts were interrupted by the muffled sound of paper sliding through wood. She turned briskly and noticed the note on the edge of the hollow point in the shelf. She walked to the note and unconsciously-without a second thought opened it and narrowed her eyes below her own words to his.

His handwriting was sloppy and careless. Perhaps he'd been rushing. The suddeness of her unprecedented confession must have made him anxious she thought but still bailey immediately acknowledged he was a much better reader than a writer. A smile escaped her lips as she peered through his terrible handwriting, again and again till she had read it five times over. She felt the uncontrollable urge to break into dance or scream to the heavens or simply do something, anything to relieve the tension building up in her chest.

Can I tell you a secret

I believe in love too

Her eyes rose from the note to the hole in the shelf and met his. He had to crouch down to see her, brown eyes piercing through her from the barricade that stood between them. She held his gaze firmly, with as much steadiness and gallantry she could muster, she could feel her legs shaking beneath her. They stared at each other intently and for a fraction of a second they'd both forgotten they were strangers. Her dark blue eyes felt so familiar to him, like he'd known them for ever. Again there was that intolerable silence.

He opened his mouth to speak, something nonsensical about and her letter and perhaps his name. She hadn't really heard a word of it, inattentively she passed it through the hole to him. His eyes still fixed at her, he slid his hand to retrieve it. Bailey didn't think he said anything else but was certain she wouldn't have heard if she did. She was still trapped in her trance, glacial in the reverie of his dark eyes on her and her's on his. She imagined they were not in a library but a garden or flower field where she could see his face completely. Now she wanted to see his face completely. Just then the bell rang and his dark eyes disappeared from the space they'd been peering at her with. Knowingly, she hastened. Racing fast as she could around the shelf, she could hear footsteps trailing ahead of her, large, tall feet on the fragile tiles. He ran away from her as quickly as she ran towards him.

When she finally got to the opposite side of the hole where he once stood staring, he was gone and so was her letter.