Due Date: Forever

Behind them, Juniper & Quill carried on with its usual quiet life. A floorboard creaked near the front counter. Someone turned a page. The old radiator clicked as it tried to convince the room it was warmer than it was. Outside, rain tapped against the windows in a steady, patient rhythm.

The shop had always made Mara feel as though the world had been turned down. Even the dust seemed considerate here.

She had come in because her apartment was too silent and the café downstairs was too full of couples. Juniper & Quill had been the only place she could think of where nobody would ask if she was all right. It was a narrow, deep shop tucked between a tailor and a store that sold handmade soaps. Books leaned in uneven rows from floor to ceiling. Lamps with green shades glowed over armchairs. A handwritten sign near the register announced that the cat did not belong to the shop, although the cat clearly disagreed.

Mara had been standing in the poetry aisle for eleven minutes, pretending to read a book she had no intention of buying, when this one slipped free.

She had not expected it to matter.

“You can have it,” she said.

The stranger blinked. “Just like that?”

“You’ve been looking for three months. I’ve been looking for something to do for three days. Your need is more specific.”

“That isn’t how books work.”

“It’s how shelves work. One person takes a book, another person doesn’t.”

“You’re giving up very quickly.”

“I’m not giving up. I’m making an informed decision.”

“Based on what?”

“The fact that you look like you might start crying if I don’t.”

He released the book.

Mara nearly stumbled backward. She caught herself against the shelf and held the paperback more securely.

“I do not look like I might cry,” he said.

“You do a little.”

“I’m wet.”

“That can be emotionally confusing.”

He looked toward the front of the shop, perhaps considering an escape. The rain had thickened against the glass. Beyond the window, bicycles and umbrellas moved through the gray afternoon in blurred pieces.

“What do you want for it?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“That’s not what people say when they want nothing.”

“Fine. I want you to stop looking at me as if I’ve stolen your childhood.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m looking at you as if you’ve caught a book I’ve been trying to find since March.”

“That’s worse.”

Another almost-smile appeared, then vanished before it could become friendly.

“I’m Elias,” he said.

Mara looked down at the title. The gold lettering had worn thin enough to resemble a secret.

“Congratulations.”

“That’s my name.”

“I understood the announcement.”

He waited.

She had forgotten that people usually offered their own names in return. Her mother called this basic courtesy. Her ex had called it one of the reasons Mara was difficult to live with. He had said it gently, which had somehow made it worse.

“Mara,” she said at last.

“Nice to meet you, Mara.”

“We’re not there yet.”

He glanced at the book. “Are you going to buy it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said you wanted something to do.”

“Reading is not the only thing people do with books.”

“What else do you do with them?”

“Use them to prop up uneven tables. Hide letters. Make a point by leaving them conspicuously open.”

“Do you have a table that needs propping up?”

“Not currently.”

“A letter?”

“No.”

“A point?”

Mara tightened her fingers around the paperback. “Possibly.”

That answer was too close to the truth. She had spent the morning staring at the message her ex had sent: I hope you’re doing okay. It was the sort of sentence that asked for forgiveness without risking the inconvenience of saying sorry. She had typed six replies and deleted all of them.

She had also found his old bicycle lock in the kitchen drawer. She had carried it halfway to the trash, then put it back.

None of this was Elias’s business. He was a stranger with wet shoulders and a book-shaped grievance.

“You should buy it,” he said.

“You should stop telling me what to do.”

“I’m only saying that if you don’t want it, you could let me buy it.”

“You’re very committed to this book.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

His expression changed. Not dramatically. The guardedness simply moved into place, like a door being closed from the inside.

“Because I am.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the one I have.”

Mara recognized the shape of that refusal. She had used it herself for years. It was what people said when the real answer had teeth.

From the front counter, the shopkeeper called, “If either of you plans to fight, please do it away from the first editions.”

Mara turned. The shopkeeper, a silver-haired woman named June, was watching them over her glasses. A black cat sat beside the register, unimpressed.

“We’re not fighting,” Elias said.

“That’s what people say before they knock over the mythology shelf.”

“I’m buying the book,” Mara said.

“Excellent,” June replied. “Then you may fight with your receipts.”

Elias stepped aside to let her pass. The aisle was so narrow his shoulder brushed hers. He smelled faintly of rain, metal, and something clean beneath both.

At the counter, Mara placed the book down.

June picked it up, then paused. “This one has been waiting.”

“For him, apparently.”

“Books are rarely that simple.”

“It’s a paperback.”

“So are people.”

Mara stared at her.

June smiled as if she had said nothing unusual and turned the book over to check the price.

Elias came to stand beside Mara, leaving a polite amount of space between them. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet. A small photograph slid loose and landed faceup on the counter.

Mara saw only a bicycle wheel, a child’s red shoe, and the edge of a blue jacket before Elias covered it with his hand.

His face had gone still.

There it was again: the door closing.

Mara looked away. “You can have the book.”

“You’re buying it.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

She could have said because she didn’t need it. She could have said because she was tired of being watched. Instead, she heard herself tell the truth.

“Because I know what it’s like to want one thing and have everyone assume you want something else.”

Elias looked at her.

It was not a large confession. It did not explain the breakup or the key in her drawer or the message she could not answer. Still, once spoken, it seemed to occupy the space between them.

June slid the book toward him.

“One copy,” she said. “Two customers. You’ll have to work out the rest.”

Elias picked up the paperback, but he did not leave. He turned it over in his hands, careful with the cracked spine.

“There’s a café around the corner,” he said. “I can show you where it is.”

“I know where it is.”

“Of course you do.”

“I’ve been here longer than eleven minutes.”

“How long?”

Mara glanced at the rain-streaked window.

“Long enough to know I shouldn’t go home yet.”

Elias nodded as if she had given him an ordinary answer.

“Then don’t,” he said.

He paid for the book. Mara followed him out into the rain, not because she had agreed to coffee, and not because she wanted company.

She followed because, for the first time in three days, she had done something without knowing how it would end.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters in the full book.