Emily has never been good at shutting out the noise around her. She is intelligent and hardworking, determined and focused – but she craves silence: she needs silence.
She makes the fairly short walk to the Baker library and finds a quiet corner where she spreads out her textbooks marked and flagged with an array of colorful tabs and boots up her laptop. While she waits she takes a moment to take in her comforting surroundings. Ever since Emily was a little girl she has found solace among books. From the moment she began receiving an allowance she would splurge on books of all genres, and across the span of many years had developed quite a library of her own, all housed within her own bedroom. Her favorite books (and they remain so to this day) are To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee, A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess, Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte and most recently Tuesday’s With Morrie by Mitch Albom.
There is just something to be surrounded by all of this history or more likely, it is the indisputable fact that whatever she does not already know can be so easily found – typed and printed in one of the millions of books that enclosed her at that very moment.
Her laptop now ready for use Emily opens her essay document and begins the process of reading her work so far. It is how she always begins. She sits down and she reads with the mid morning sun shining through the large windows beside her.
When she is finished reading she settles deeper in her chair and begins to type. Essay writing has always come easily to her as long as she is focused. She sits and she writes. She consults the flagged pages in her textbooks and writes. She stands up and walks around for a few moments for a mental break and then writes. She can feel the conclusion drawing near – she feels exhilarated. She begins her final paragraph – the words are already written in her mind ready to leap onto the computer screen when there is a loud crash behind her. Out of instinct her hand reaches forward and shuts her laptop and she is up on her feet.
She cannot see his face but she watches him scramble to gather the books and the seemingly outlandish amount of paper that is scattered across the wooden floor. A quick glance at the small number of people around her shows that none of them seem in any way willing to help. She steps gingerly forward.
“Let me help you,” she says. His back is turned to her, his hands grabbing wildly at the papers. She bends forward and picks up a thick, heavy textbook, a few sheets of paper and a ballpoint pen that she isn’t even sure is his. She rises to find him standing mere inches from her so tall that she only just grazes his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he replies reaching for the items she holds in her outstretched arms. He turns away and Emily can tell he is blushing. She smiles and watches as he walks away and once he is out of sight returns to her work. Out of the corner of her eyes she notices a number of sheets of lined paper tucked just under her chair. She retrieves them and looking towards the door to see if he is in fact gone – yes – and then turns them over. She is caught off guard by the amount of scribbles and scratches that appear on the page; surprised with the seemingly random after thoughts scrawled well in to the margins of the page. For a self-proclaimed neat freak the document makes her nervous. It seems as though she has been staring at the untidy words for minutes before she notices the name printed – rather neatly strangely enough on the bottom right corner of the paper. Benjamin Frey. She stares at the pages in her hand wondering how important (or not) they are to… Benjamin, then realizing the time she is wasting tucks the notes into her bag and settles back at her computer.
Try as hard as she might, Emily cannot shut out the noise around her and she becomes frustrated… until she looks around at the near empty, silent room and realizes that the noise is coming from deep inside her own mind.
Emily spends another three hours in the library trying – and failing – to complete her essay. One paragraph: one paragraph is all that stands in her way. One paragraph: one paragraph would have never before been a problem. She doesn’t understand. She feels incompetent and frustrated with her inability to write. Three hours and nothing. Emily packs up her things and returns to her dorm room: she needs a break.
**
She stares at her mouth first – studying it. It is small in size but her lips are full and pink. While she hasn’t kissed many men, she has never received any complaints. In fact it is quite the opposite. She feels confident in her kissing and with her lips. She studies her wide green eyes, the freckles on either side of her nose, the single soul above her left eyebrow. She studies her sharp, angular nose, her small ears and long neck, her shoulders, her stomach and her long, lean legs. She turns and looking over her shoulders studies her backside. She is in great shape. Then again, she was blessed with a great figure that even without work looked pretty damn good.
Emily started going to the gym when she turned twenty. Before then it was something that she thought about constantly but knew she could never make the commitment. In all honesty what really got her to the gym in the end was the discovery that it was where David often trained. Emily is a million things… but extroverted is not one of them.
She started going to the gym with the hopes of running into David, which she did often for the first couple months, and then very little for the next few. Fortunately for her, by the time the first two months had passed David had taken quite a shine to her.
On their first date he took her to one of his favorite restaurants in San Francisco: Roy’s. He was the perfect gentlemen: removing her coat, pulling out her chair, insisting that she samples the wine. Conversation came easily and between the appetizers, entrees and dessert the meal lasted nearly three hours. With the wine bottle empty and the cheque paid there was nothing left to do but head home. David held the door open for her and they stepped out into the cool autumn air. When he asked for her permission to hold her hand Emily’s knees nearly buckled. It seemed impossible that someone this polite and easy going could possibly be single. She wasn’t a cynical person by nature, and she wanted nothing more than to find confirmation that what she was feeling wasn’t wasted and so she shook the thoughts from her head and took his hand in hers.
He held her hand while he drove her home, walked her to her door, told her he had had a wonderful time and asked to kiss her. She said yes of course and that kiss was all she needed to know that he was a good man and that he would make her unbelievably happy.
And he has. For three years he has.
Emily stares at her naked form in the full length mirror for just a moment longer and then turns on the shower beside her. As the hot water pours over her there is a man on her mind, and she smiles at the thoughts.
Benjamin Frey.
She is ready to be seen.
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