Aubree really didn't want to spend her day off babysitting her cousin. But little Suzie's parents had been fighting in court all week over alimony, and Aubree's mom would be out cleaning until seven.

Suzie wanted to go to the library to see a puppet show. On the car ride there, she screamed the lyrics of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" for fifteen minutes straight.

"COUNTRY ROADS! TAKE ME HOME! TO THE PLACE! I BELONG! WEST VIRGINIA! MOUNTAIN MAMA!"

Aubree put on headphones while driving even though it was illegal.

The audience for the show consisted of a bunch of six and seven-year-olds. They sat huddled in the corner, glaring at the puppet theater. The puppeteer— a young woman, Aubree judged from the voice— performed "Little Red Riding Hood ''. It was actually pretty good. The puppets looked professionally made; the wolf, covered in black fur, had round cartoony eyes that could open and close. Little Red Riding Hood wore a beautiful lace dress, with floral patterns decorated all over the fabric. The beedy eyes on her purple felt face made the puppet feel more abstract than human.

More than that, though, Aubree found herself genuinely interested in the story. The wolf had a tragic backstory where humans killed his family. Now he planned on eating Red Riding Hood out of revenge. But the more he talked to her, the more he grew attached to the girl. Throughout the whole show, Aubree waited to see whether the wolf would carry out his plan, or spare his prey.

In the end, friendship was more important to him than revenge. All the kids cheered, and Aubree clapped with them. "Good shit," she said, just quiet enough so no one heard her.

The puppeteer emerged from the side of the stage, and took a bow.

Lunch time. The grown-ups led the kids outside for a picnic. Suzie tugged at Aubree’s shirt, beckoning her along.

“In a sec,” Aubree said. “Wanna say hi to the puppeteer?”

Suzie sighed and crossed her arms. Fuck the puppeteer, apparently. “Come on. She looks nice.”

The woman was packing the puppets away in a suitcase. She eyed Aubree first, then Suzie.

“Well, hello!” the woman said to Suzie. “Did you like the show?”

Suzie nodded. No smiles. “Yup.”

The woman laughed. “Ready for lunchtime, huh?” Suzie nodded again, smiling this time.

“Yeah, I just wanted to say…” Aubree stammered. For some reason, she couldn’t look the woman in the face. Not that she didn’t want to. Her freckled amber skin, wide brown eyes, and pearly overbite touched Aubree in a way she couldn’t describe.“I just wanted to say your show was really good. The puppets looked cool. I wasn’t expecting it to be so high quality.”

“Yeah.” The woman picked up the suitcase. “I know what you mean. A lot of… Well, I don’t wanna curse, but you get a lot of crap shows, you know? Slapstick stuff. I think kids deserve better than that.” She gestured to Suzie. “Is she your daughter?”

“...Er, no. My cousin.”

“Cool, cool. Well, my mom’s out there ready to pick me up. It was nice meeting you… what’s your name?”

“Aubree.”

“And what’s your name?” The woman knelt down closer to Suzie and had asked this in a cutesy tone.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Suzie.”

“Alright. Suzie, Aubree. Thanks for seeing the show. I’ll be here next week.” She ran halfway towards the door, then turned.

“I’m sorry! I forgot to tell you my name. It’s Taylor. Alright, bye-bye!” Out the door she went.

The whole rest of the week, Aubree ate very little. She didn't know why. Every time she tried to eat breakfast, her heart would race, and she'd get all sweaty. By lunch time, she wouldn't have much of an appetite either. By dinner, her stomach would be swirling— probably out of hunger— and yet she could barely eat without blood rushing through her body. She felt as if something exciting and terrifying was about to happen, like the apocalypse.

At work, whenever she didn't have a customer, Aubree would just stare out the window, at the grassy hill across the street. It dipped below the horizon, so she couldn’t see what lay beyond it. But she kept imagining, and yearning.

On the evening before her day off, she texted Suzie's mom asking if her daughter wanted to see the puppet show at the library again. Her mom said sorry, but Suzie had gotten an allergic reaction from eating a walnut earlier that afternoon, and would be in the hospital for the next day or so.

The next morning, Aubree found herself driving to the library by herself. It was rush-hour. The summer sun glared off the windows of all the cars. The air rippled from the blazing heat, as if reality were breaking apart. The AC in Aubree's car had broken four years ago, so she sweltered while sitting in traffic.

She arrived within a half hour, drenched in sweat. Maybe, she thought, no one would be there, so she'd be able to dry herself up in the bathroom. She threw the front door open. Around the corner, Aubree saw Taylor sitting alone on the windowsill near the kids' corner.

Aubree ducked behind a row of bookshelves. Shit. To get to the bathroom, she'd have to go through the kids' section. Guess that meant that she was stuck here until the sweat dried off.

Aubree now squatted behind the nonfiction O-Z section. She soon found herself skimming through a book about 19th century whaling. Apparently whale vomit had been used in expensive perfumes as a preservative.

Interesting.

After fifteen minutes, she decided that she looked dry enough. She emerged, casually, from out of the bookshelves. Taylor hadn't moved. She just sat there on the windowsill, drawing in a sketchbook. She was wearing a pretty sunflower dress.

Noticing Aubree, Taylor smiled. Her face glittered in the sunlight.

"Oh hey! It's you again!" Her voice sounded as bubbly as it did last week. "You look kinda sweaty."

"Um..." Aubree's face flushed. "Hot day. It's a hot day."

Taylor nodded. "You bet it is. Did you drive here?"

"Yeah."

"Don't you have any AC?"

Aubree stepped towards the fiction section on the opposite side of the library. "It's been kinda funky lately. Anyway, I was just about to..."

Taylor nodded again. "Here to check out a book? Don't let me stop you. I'm just doodlin' before the kids show up."

"Oh." Aubree now inched closer towards Taylor. "You like to draw?"

Turning her sketchbook towards Aubree, Taylor said: "Yup. Not much of an illustrator. Just designing puppets."

Indeed, sketches of animal and abstract human characters littered the page. Nothing below their wastes had been filled in.

“You design the puppets?” Aubree said. “Thought you just bought them on Etsy or something.”

“Nope.” Taylor went back to sketching. “I design and build every puppet. It’s my passion.”

“Oh. That’s cool.”

Neither spoke for what felt like an eternity. Aubree felt gross and awkward just standing there, saying nothing, soaked in half-dried sweat.

“Well, anyway,” Aubree said, her voice creaky. “I guess I’ll check out that book now.”

Taylor smiled again. “Okey dokey. Maybe I’ll see you again later.”

“That’d be cool.”

Aubree lingered in the fiction section for a couple minutes, before circling the library for another half-hour. Somehow she ended up leaving with the whaling book.

That night, Aubree lay in bed with her eyes closed.

  We are slow dancing naked on the precipice of a cliff under the full moon and there are sunflowers twirling at our feet and it smells earthy and sweet and I can hear Vivaldi echoing across the mountainscape and I bury my face in your chest and your skin is so soft and warm and reminds me of home and kiss your nipples and you lie me down in the grass and start fingering me and my muscles tense up and loosen at the same time and the crisp breath of autumn rushes through my heart and lungs and veins and my atoms are being swept away and suddenly my blood is rushing like I'm speeding down a roller coaster and I can hear the sizzling and crackling of nebulae millions of light-years away and I can see alien colors dwelling at the edge of the universe and I feel like I'm dying and being born at the same time and—