fitting

Only fitting, it happens on a Tuesday evening in a crowded library she sits and waits and threads her fingers through words and lines, spaces and tears taped together hastily, rushing to reach the end. Overdue novels placed lovingly beneath textbooks from her parents’ time radiate heat to her fingertips, a scorching reminder that all is temporary and pages are pages and ink is ink no matter what settles into print. She listens for thought and hums to herself, a song her sister liked when she was home and she was well and supper was still at the table. Her eyes flash when he approaches; a stranger not unlike herself, hoping and stretching towards words in their native tongue that they do not yet understand. This particular Tuesday wrought emptiness and completion and split bills and stained receipts and lies and optimism. She takes his number willingly and writes it on her wrist and in her mind and turns the digits over and commits his eyebrows to memory and it is only fitting.