Back to December

A soft sigh escaped her mouth once she had attempted to rub the sleep out of her eyes. Whenever the days were longer and darker in the last month of the year, she felt how her energy levels were significantly lower than they were during the summer. She supposed it had something to do with the cold and the darkness. On the other hand, this month was rather cosy too, and although she wouldn’t quickly admit that, she liked that. With her free hand, she tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear.

Her fingers trailed over the books that were put up on the countless shelves of the library. Even though she liked partying more than studying, she could be found in the library quite often. She studied literature, after all. Today, she was planning on finding a few books that could come to use for her next paper, and she was mostly focussing on the classics right now. Margot narrowed her eyes when she noticed a open spot on the top shelf, right where Robinson Crusoe was supposed to be. ”Shit,” she muttered, standing up on her toes and letting her fingers explore the dusty shelf, trying to get hold of the book that had been pushed to the back. To catch a breath – and to think of a more efficient way to get the book – she lowered her arm again. By the time she looked aside, she noticed a familiar face. ”What are you doing here?” she blunty asked him. To be honest, Max was the last person she had expected to roam around in a library.

Margot wondered how long she would keep this up before she would end up in a bar with her friends. Surely, she had quite a few books to go before she could write her literature analysis, but she had always had a tough time resisting temptation. And whenever her friends were heading out – while she was staring at piles of postponed work – she tended to make the choice that would satisfy her needs in the short term.

Her deadline started to close in on her, and realisation had hit her that she would truly have to read those books now. The first step had been to come collect them, and even though she came here pretty often, the real challange was to open those books up once she was back in her room. While she was trying to get her hands on the right books, she got distracted by the presence of a familiar face. He was working on something. Those words sounded extremely strange coming from his mouth, and she raised her brow too when he added that he had a deadline soon. ”From what I remember, you care very little about those.” She hadn’t spoken to him in quite some time now, and she figured what had caused this sudden change. ”Did you hit your head recently?” she curiously asked him, peeking over at the screen of his laptop.

There were days where she greatly regretted picking literature to study, especially when she gazed at the list of books she would have to read in the next month. If she wanted to succeed, she had to keep herself to a strict schedule. And not only did she have to read those books, but she also had to prepare her homework and write analyses’ about them. Not to mention that reading books wasn’t the only thing you had to do when studying a language.

Motivating herself with something nice ahead of her might work out for her today. While she was picking out the right books, her attention was drawn to a familiar face sitting behind a library desk, seeming to be working quite hard on something. ”Alright, I get that,” she eventually said in response, although she wasn’t sure if she indeed got it. In the past, he had cared very little about getting kicked out. ”What are you working on?” she asked him, holding onto the two books she had already gathered as she walked over to his desk.

When she saw her ex sitting behind a screen in the library, actually working on something, it had piqued her curiosity enough to start a conversation with him. She wasn’t sure how long it would last, as she wasn’t planning on staying in the library for too long. Besides, perhaps they would be shushed by other hard-working students that wouldn’t appreciate them disturbing the peace.

He was working on a research paper about urbanization in the late middle ages. God, that didn’t sound like much fun. ”That sounds… pretty boring,” she eventually admitted. Some people would give the socially acceptable answer, but Margot couldn’t be bothered. Margot looked down at her books when he bounced back the question. ”I need to read a couple of books before I can start with my assignment,” she stated, reaching in to take the first book from her pile and briefly holding it up, as if she was proving that she was actually taking a few books with her. ”Reads better than on my laptop.” Her eyes would start to hurt after staring down her screen after some hours, so she prefered the paper ones.