I Lost 90 Pounds, Only to Find He Tried to Give Me Away novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: Help Desk

The main library stays open all night on weekends.

I knew that because he'd told me in July.

"I work the 2 a.m. desk," he'd written, as Carver. "It's mostly people crying about printers."

I'd thought Carver was being funny.

At 1:55 I put on my hoodie.

Betsy was asleep with her purple hat on her pillow.

The senior had left with the others, still apologizing for showing me the text.

I walked across the quad in the dark.

It was warm out, and the sprinklers were ticking.

The library's lobby was all glass and orange lamps, mostly empty.

A couple of grad students slept face-down on their laptops.

Beck was behind the help desk under a sign that said ASK ME, with a computer engineering textbook open and a highlighter in his teeth.

He saw me come through the gates.

He took the highlighter out of his mouth very slowly.

He didn't get up.

He didn't say my name.

He waited, because I hadn't texted first, and I guess he'd decided that counted for in person too.

I put both hands on the counter.

"You shouldn't have done that," I said.

"Which part?"

"The forty pages. The director's office. Six-forty in the morning."

"She told you."

"She doesn't keep secrets for young men who are trying to look noble."

The corner of his mouth went up, just a little.

"I wasn't trying to look noble."

"You lost your starting spot."

"I know."

"They're reviewing your scholarship."

"I know."

"Beck."

It was the first time I'd said his name out loud.

It felt strange in my mouth.

He looked at me.

"Your account was clean," he said. "The screenshots were true. I just printed them. If that costs me something, then it was always going to cost somebody something, and it shouldn't have been you."

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