the library that looked like an apartment complex

The brick buildings are typical of Boston - old, with metal balconies where sparrows balance and perch, before flying elsewhere in search of food or a puddle to drink from. The building was tan, bricks weathered, not that anyone paid much attention to the architecture where they were headed, anyway. These were rarely those sorts of travels.

That wasn't to say nobody ever went there in search of architecture studies - libraries housed all sorts of scholars, after all. And this brick building, in spite of what the balconies might lead a pedestrian to believe, was not an apartment building but a library, one made up of former apartments, before, well, before Boston became more somewhere people traveled to rather than somewhere people lived.

The inside still had the layout of apartments - hallways between rooms labeled by subject, fantasy and mythology in the room by the entryway, science fiction further down the hall, historical fiction and alternative history housed by the staircase and elevators, as though tempting patrons to search for more contemporary literature.

And upstairs more contemporary literature is stored, rolling bookshelves and friendly librarians reminding readers why they took a chance here rather than the Boston Public Library, why they were willing to go through a doorway that felt like one should need to be buzzed in rather than the waiting glass gates by Copley.

One teenager made his way through the entrance, upstairs to where the librarians were, then up yet another flight of stairs until he was at yet another hallway with door labeled for the types of books they contained, these less comfortable. Suicide prevention shelf was in the hallway, whereas other doors had labels like learning disabilities, medical ethics, and at the end of the hallway contained a door with a label the boy avoided even glancing at, having been here too many times to count yet never quite being able to believe he belonged in a room with these words on the door: abuse, neglect, and trauma recovery. 

The first few times he had visited the third floor of the library, he had been unable to walk past the first shelf in the hallway, scanning its shelves in spite of himself, despite knowing he didn't want to die, so How Not To Kill Yourself or Reasons to Stay Alive were just titles to him, fear keeping him rooted in place as he stared at A Manual For Heartbreak, wondering if that might cure him of his problems. Wondering if being in a liminal space full of death when what he wanted was to live was a sign of the sheer irony of his life.

Today, he was going to open the door and walk through the doorway into the room. Part of him had built hopes far too high - that he will enter and the books will be exactly what he needs, no Courage To Heal or Chicken Soup for the Soul but realistically, he had his doubts that any book could save him at all. Still, he nudged the door open and entered, eyes already scanning titles to avoid noticing if anyone else was there. Nobody was, his peripheral vision assured him. His too sharp peripheral vision was part of his problem, but PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving was now in his direct line of sight, alongside a bunch of workbooks, what appeared to be a book by an Auschwitz survivor, and another by Oprah frigging Winfrey. He fought the urge to laugh. He was hopeless. He was alone in a room labeled abuse, neglect, and trauma recovery. What was he doing there?!

He stared, hand stopped on the book Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families. He paused, removing it from the shelf. This hell had begun when he was a child, just a boy, his brother on the brink of puberty, but the teenager was not yet an adult child - would a book written for adults help him at all? Could any book help him, truly? He could still taste his brother, no matter how many swigs of his water bottle he took or what he ate.

The teenager looked around, alone in the room. He placed the book on the rolling empty shelf labeled 'leave books here' - he was not yet an adult. Near that shelf, behind it, was a row on emotional neglect. The boy stared ahead at the books, titles blurring together as the door he had entered, the door behind him, creaked open.

A woman, with heeled shoes echoing on the former apartment's wooden floors, entered. The boy hoped she wasn't a librarian, he would not be asked if he needed any help finding anything. His heartbeat was already increasing in pace by the mere presence of another body in the room. He dared turn towards her, making out that she had blonde hair in a ponytail and was taller than him in his peripheral vision. She scanned the room, and her eyes flicked over him like he didn't exist, or as though she, too, was terrified to even be in the room she was in. Her outfit was formal, office like, making the boy acutely aware of just how young he felt, although her discomfort did make him feel a bit better about his own. The boy turned back to the shelf in front of him, the 'Leave Books Here' cart by his right side, worryingly near his back back, but he had yet to bump into it. His gaze froze at the title Sexual Abuse and Emotional Neglect. Next to it was Not Child's Play: An Anthology on Brother-Sister Incest. The boy was blinking, trying to stay present, hand on his water bottle as he felt rather than saw the woman behind him, too close. She reached for the anthology.

"Sorry, I -I'll get out of your way," the boy sheepishly apologized. He took a step backwards, unintentionally walking right into the woman, her breasts against his back, momentarily; the boy was throwing himself across the room before sitting on the floor by the door, entirely overwhelmed by the minor interaction.

"It's okay, you're fine, kid, you don't - I - we're here for the same reason, I think."

"No, that's not - I don't - why are you here?"

"My dad's a - I don't think it's abuse but my boss disagrees, told me about this place, but I don't know -" The woman cut herself off, avoiding eye contact with the teenage boy, who felt a moment of connection with the woman. His brother wasn’t capable of knowing better, that wasn’t the same as a parent… the boy’s mouth spoke for him.

"You grabbed an anthology of brother-sister incest, though,"

 "Figure they can't be that different, right? Although I don't know if what my dad does really counts, he doesn't actually... he just has a bad habit of walking in on me showering or changing, but he - I dunno what I'm doing here, really." The woman placed the book on the metal 'Leave Books Here' rack, where it clanged loudly, echoing in the now-otherwise-silent room.

"I don't know what I'm doing here either, really. My brother's not... he can't be abusive, he's not smart enough to know what he's doing is wrong. I should know better, should stop him, but I can't make myself. My parents say that it’s better he touch me, anyway. Since I already love him. They’re right, I shouldn’t be here." The boy’s blinking finally became a lost cause - tears fell. The woman walked over to him, her shoes still clacking against the wooden floor. She pulled a tissue from her purse, silently offering it to him. The boy took the tissue. The boy continued, his voice cracking with tears. 

"I'm sorry, you're going through real abuse, what with a dad - a parent has actual power, and he shouldn't be watching you shower, that's fucked up."

"Maybe, I don't know. Being actually touched seems more messed up, and if parents have power, that includes your parents telling you to accept your brother, whatever he's doing, that's still power over you."

"I - whatever. I'm gonna go, sorry to bother you."

"You didn't - oh, bye." The boy had slipped out the door as the woman spoke, now safely back in the hallway. He didn't want to stay in the hallway in case she followed him, though he doubted would; still, he walked into medical ethics and scanned the titles, barely aware of what he was reading, barely real. 

The woman's words repeated in his head: Being actually touched seems more messed up, and if parents have power, that includes your parents telling you to accept your brother, whatever he's doing, that's still power over you. Whatever he's doing, that's still power over you. Whatever he's doing, like kissing, and touching the teenager, whose body reacted the way teenage bodies evolved to react when touched, whose body was reacting now at the memories, who didn't want his brother that way but remembered hands inside his clothes and felt so much shame rush through him. His body was reacting now, even though what happened happened the previous night, a tongue in his mouth and hands on him and it felt good but his mind knew - the boy breathed. He stared at the books in front of him. The Protest Psychosis stared back at him, spine pointing his direction, but the boy had a feeling he would leave the library empty handed today.

He continued browsing, reading a few chapters of an anthology on the ethics of organ donation. His body didn't feel like his, but he wouldn't want his organs inside of a stranger even after he died. He didn't want his organs touched the way they would have to be for that sort of surgery. He didn't want to be touched. And here, in a library that was once an apartment, in a doorway that was once the threshold between public and private but now existed entirely in the in-between, he wasn't. The doorway with the label that scared him would be there when he was ready to try reading a book on the subject, and maybe that woman might be there too next time. The boy didn't know, but he did know that he was safe here. Nobody would touch him on purpose here.