Extraits

And then the music started, and even I recognized it as an old song, the one where the guy is bringing sexy back. Then Half-Bearded Guy approached the mic and opened his mouth and we learned of his plan.

“I’m bringing Chaucer back. Yeah! Those other poets don’t know how to write. Yeah!” he sang.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She laughed, not meanly. “Well, I’m alone in a library loft talking to myself, so I suppose I’m not stellar.”

The lilt in her voice intrigued me. She seemed like the kind of girl you’d meet in a loft in a barely used Massachusetts library while reading Tennyson poems about the finite nature of man. If that wasn’t a type before, now it was.

There was something almost comfortable about sitting on the pool floor, even with all the chlorinated water I’d swallowed and the lack of oxygen down there. Like for a simple moment, nothing was pulling at me. I was just Ben-at-the-bottom-of-the-pool, and I opened my eyes, saw the light blue world around me, and thought, Yes. This. A part of me actively chose not to push myself up to the surface.