Experiment #028: 'Conflicting Interests, Library Quiet vs. Socializing'

The library was quiet, the way Rowan liked it, there weren't many students around at that time of day, so the only you could hear was the distant scratch of a quill or the sound of a page being turned or a really quiet hush. Rowan had been here for an hour, maybe more, perched on a stool in the back corner with her knees pulled up and a potions textbook open in her lap. She wasn't reading it, she was just staring at the same paragraph about moonstone properties, her eyes glazing over every time she tried to focus. She didn't feel any particular way about potions, then again, she didn't feel any particular way about anything in her life. She didn't love the subject with a passion but she didn't hate it with passion either and that was that.

She needed the book, the specific one with the chapter on moonstone, the one with a very dull brown hardcover. She had found the shelf where it was supposed to be, a really tall one that Rowan had to arch her head to see the end of it. She had scanned the spines and there it was. On the top shelf, right behind a person.

A redheaded person with freckles like stars on their face and the Hufflepuff crest proud on their robes. They looked like a first year just like Rowan so she felt more at ease in their presence, older students gave her the creeps. The person was just standing there, staring at the shelf like they were trying to remember why they had come to this section in the first place. They weren't reaching for anything, weren't reading anything in particular. Just... existing. Directly in front of the book Rowan needed.

She watched them for a moment, they looked like a nice person who would probably apologize for breathing too loud. Rowan didn't mind nice, she just...didn't understand it. They didn't move, didn't notice her. Just stood there, lost in whatever thoughts were occupying their apparently very still brain. Rowan sighed, quietly. The kind of sigh that said I did not want to speak to anyone today, and yet here we are.

"Excuse me," she said, her voice low and dry. "You're in front of the book I need."

She stared at them with her tired green eyes, she didn't sleep well last night, she couldn't remember the last time she did sleep any better.

Rowan stared at the Hufflepuff. They were nervous and apologetic that Rowan had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Offering to share food like that would somehow make up for the inconvenience of existing in her space. She should say no, take the book and walk away and finish her essay in blessed, solitary silence hidden behind some shelf far away from prying eyes.

But they had a point. One book and two students, and the same assignment. Working together was the logical solution, even if she hated the word "together." It sounded like a trap, like someone asking you to hold hands and jump off a cliff at the same time. Together was how they had taken Clara and broke her mother. Together was a leash dressed up as a hug, and Rowan had no interest in wearing it.

She looked at their face, freckled, anxious, bracing for rejection, and sighed. Not heavily, just enough to let them know she was annoyed but not enough to be rude. Although Rowan's definition of rude can be more open and flexible following her own moral compass, which in most cases, was not the most reliable.

"Fine," she said, dropping the book on the table with a thump. "But I work better in silence. If you talk to me while I'm reading, I will pretend not to hear you." She sat down across from them, pulling the book closer. "And I don't need your food. I'm not a stray cat."

She paused, glancing at their bag.

"...What kind of cheese?"