Rising Shards

I had a new quest as I browsed the bookshelves: to prove that I too was a good-ass gift giver. Stella’s challenge was for a book I think she’d like, and one I’d want her to read, so I’d have to find a gift present and then something I’ve read that I’d like her to read as well. I didn’t have a list of everything she’s ever read so I was flying blind there and was running the risk of her getting something she already owned. But that was a stupid thing to worry about for us trying some cute little date thing.

As soon as Stella made the challenge, that’s when it officially felt like a date to me. It probably should have when she gently held my elbow as we ascended a stairwell, that was some real like actual romance there, but I was too busy internally screaming and cheering for logic to kick in.

The store we were at had a used and a new section, so I had a pretty wide selection to look over. I decided for the book I thought she would like to get a big coffee table book about play history with a lot of behind-the-scenes photos and notes and junk (I attempted to prepare some horrendous pun about coffee table books and us getting coffee that I almost immediately abandoned in shame). She might be like “Why do you know about me acting?” and if I wasn’t brave enough to say I creeped a little on her social pages and watched her at a play, I could just say it was a lucky guess or that her little sister told me she acted. I was feeling a bit cocky/lucky so I could maybe get away with telling her the truth there already without seeming like too much of a weirdo. And it’s not like “I wanted to see you act and I did and you were amazing,” would be that weird of a thing to tell her. I was tempted to get a book titled “How to Not Suck as a Librarian” as a gag gift but I got the vibe Stella wanted cute and genuine gifts and not silly joke gifts.

I had a harder time picking a book that I’d already read that I wanted her to read. I mainly read Cani science journals about various findings about Cani biology and what have you. And also manga and light novels. And comedian autobiographies. I didn’t read a lot of literary fiction, but I did give into trends and read the big talked about stuff. I had a mixed rate of success there. I didn’t read a lot of the thick fantasy or scifi books. A lot of the romances I read were in my light novels so I could maybe find something there that Stella would dig. I settled on a comedian’s really doofy autobiography that barely classified as a book but it made me laugh very hard while reading it. On the way back to the table, I thought of one more thing that I had to grab.

When I got to the table, Stella was there already, and she started wiggling in her seat and I about turned around on my heel because it was honestly overwhelming to see someone like her acting like an excited puppy just at my arrival.

“I knew what I was going to pick immediately,” Stella said. “The waiter or server or whoever said it’s gonna be about five more minutes, so. Do you want to show off our books now?”

“Umm, sure, I probably can’t keep mine hidden.” I said.

“OK, OK, let’s trade off, give me one of yours—oh, if you want, they were giving away book bags if you want to hide yours, that’s where mine are.” Stella gave me a book bag with the store’s logo printed on it. “I thought about putting them in my purse, but it’d look like I was stealing, and I didn’t want to ruin this nice morning. Evy, I am stupid excited about this, sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize for that!” I said, stealthily putting my books in the bag before I sat down. “You’re friggin’ adorable when you’re excited.”

Stella’s lips curled. She froze for a second, then let out her gut laugh. “Alright let me go first! Would you rather the one I think you’d like or the one I want you to read?”

“Whichever one you’re more excited to show me first.” I said.

Stella thought about it for a second. “Alright, first up, I hope you haven’t read this one.” She handed me a paperback titled, “The Girl Who Did a Thing.”

“I haven’t read this actually, is it good?” I asked. I’d heard of it, it was some kind of thriller.

“’The Girl Who’ trilogy is fucking fantastic Evy, you have to read them.” Stella said. “Well, you don’t have to. But I think you’d dig them. And I can see if you had the same theories I did when I read them the first time.”

“Well, thanks!” I said. “For mine, I got you…” I handed her the autobiography. Stella squinted at the cover and my stomach dropped.

“Oh! Meara Melronna!” Stella said. She nodded a bunch. “I heard this is super funny! I don’t catch her show much, but when I do I like it a lot. Thank you Evy!”

1. One down that she dug, or she is just very good at faking excitement.But she did say she wasn't into faking liking a gift, so...

“Next from me then…” Stella said. “Oh, shoot, I should’ve done a drumroll.” She strummed on the table for a second. “There. Aaaaand for a book I think you’d like…here!”

Stella handed me a recently published autobiography of a Cani scientist who made some breakthroughs on some really dry and dull Cani stuff to anyone else, but fascinating business to me.

“This one fits in a sequential way too, we both picked autobiographies!” Stella said. “I may have cheated a little, I was looking at your shelves earlier and didn’t see this one.”

“I’ve legit been wanting to read this, they have some real interesting studies on the differences between elemental powers and the more useless and weird Cani powers that…” I didn’t want to nerd out too much so I stopped myself. “Wait, we left right after I said the bookstore idea.”

“I was maybe thinking about getting you a present, so I did some quick research yesterday,” Stella said. “So your idea lined up very nicely with my findings.”

“Well.” I blushed. Like full on teenager with first crush ever blush as the butterflies hit me. I was really hungry too, so I hoped my blood sugar wasn’t just crashing. “Thank you, Stel.”

“Soooo.” Stella said. “What’s the other one? The one you’d think I’d like, I believe?”

“Right, I almost forgot.” I said. I handed her the theater book.

Stella immediately made an excited “HOOGH!”-like sound, which sounded like this was a winner.

“Evy! I love theater! Did I mention that to you already? You didn’t just guess that, did you?” Stella asked. “Did Zeta tell you?”

“I…” I couldn’t lie to her. Plus it probably wouldn’t be good to have secrets loom over each other. “So, long story short…” I explained about how I had checked her Friendliest page after meeting her and found out she did plays, and how I went to a show to see her. “I hope that doesn’t sound like creeper behavior because. Well, it’s kinda creepy.”

Stella didn’t say anything. Her face turned very red. She laughed a bit.

“I wouldn’t…” Stella laughed a bit more. “I wouldn’t say creepy. I, er. Yeah. That’s um. I hope. I was good performing. Or better performing than I’m communicating right now because. Yeah.”

“You were fantastic! I can’t wait for your next one.” I said.

“Cool,” Stella said. “Yeah, that’s not creepy at all, that’s. Wow. If I had known you were there I um. Yeah, like after I met you that. Um.”

Stella mainly attempted to finish complete sentences and failed for a bit. I failed to speak at all. During an awkward silence. I didn’t know what to do for a second, so I handed her the gift card.

Without saying anything, Stella took the gift card and checked how much was on it (it was the kind that had the amount shown on the card itself), then checked the prices of each book. She muttered the numbers out loud as she did the math. “Hey! This card should cover all these!” She held the card up in front of her mouth and did a weird pose. I really just wanted to dive off the balcony and land in a roll until I went outside to mush my face in the snow to cool off from her pulling some weird cute shit right after I told her I saw her act and she didn’t immediately dump me for being a creepy weirdo. But I still had one more thing, so I couldn’t make a dramatic exit (and all that would probably make Stella terrified and not want anything to do with me).

“I got a third, but this one doesn’t count, and I can pay for it outside of the gift card.” I said.

“Oh? See one you like?” Stella asked.

“Well, Zeta was asking in class if there were any Cani holidays that aren’t as well known.” I said. “And this book talks about them in not a completely tragically boring way.”

Stella’s brow furrowed as she took the Cani history book from me. “It’s for Zeta?” She set the book down. “Yeah. Yeah, um. Yes.”

“You…alright there?”

Stella nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.” She took a deep breath through her nose. “Just trying. Not to burst out crying with a bunch of people around.”

“That bad?” I asked.

“No, just,” Stella said. “The opposite. Zeta means everything to me so. Thinking of her. Yeah. Thank you.”

Stella brushed her hair behind her ears and looked downwards. I instinctively reached out to grab her other hand resting on the table. She gripped me very tightly, not saying anything until our breakfast and coffee arrived.