Books, Baddies and... Friendship? (Teresa)

Teresa's favorite places usually involved books. The library. That spot outside where she liked to curl up and read while it rained. The local bookstore. Books were one of her favorite things, and she probably spent far too much time absorbed in them. But then there she was again, in the bookstore making her way to the languages section. She was teaching herself German, and she had progressed enough that she needed a new book. She liked to go through as many as she could, whenever she could. Tess probably only needed one dictionary for a foreign language, but she ended up buying two or three because she liked to have them. She still had three Chinese dictionaries lying around somewhere from when she'd taught herself that language.

Tess spent a few minutes there, glancing at the spines of the books and then picking out one here and there to check out its contents. She'd narrowed it down to three books and was trying to narrow it down to one when someone else joined her in the aisle. She glanced his way, smiling faintly at him before returning to her books. He ignored her for a moment, glancing at the titles on the shelf, before he made his way closer. "What're you looking at there?" he asked. Tess looked up and smiled politely. "German books. Teaching myself a language," she said. "Need any help?" he asked. "I can go through it with you." "Er, no that's okay." She shook her head. "I'll be fine." "Come on," he said, getting a little closer. "We can study together. There's a little cafe area right over there in the store, we can sit there and talk and..."

She tried to refuse him politely, but the man was persistent. She stood there nervously, continuing to refuse him as he continued to persist in pestering her, shifting from suggesting they study a language together to just get coffee to, well, do whatever, Tess stopped paying attention to what he suggested. She just kept refusing but he kept at it. She was just too soft spoken to really tell him to lay off. The guy was loud enough, though, to attract the attention of a few people in the store.

Emelie Anderson

Teresa tried her best to pay as little attention to the man as possible, focusing her gaze on the books in her hand and on the shelf while he continued to talk to her. It clearly wasn't bothering him, since he kept at it. Her refusals of his offers for a date, any kind of date at all, were enough to show him that she was still listening. And so he persisted.

Tess was surprised to hear another voice, which distracted the man from his attempts. She turned her head to look for the source of the voice, finding a small dark haired girl standing near them with a thick book in hand. The girl asked, well, told the man to leave, clearly threatening him if he decided not to. The man frowned, looking at the girl hard for a few moments. Then he looked from the new arrival to Tess and back again, and rolled his eyes. "Not worth it," he mumbled, brushing past the dark haired girl with an irritated look on his face.

Tess waited a moment to be sure he had gone before she smiled at the girl. "Thank you so much! I didn't think he'd ever leave me alone." She might have tried to hug the other girl but her hands were full of books.

Emelie Anderson