Johnny's job at the campus library isn't as glamorous as it sounds. In fact, when the wheels of the returns cart get stuck in the gap between the floor and the elevator, he's ready to just quit right there. But a stranger's kindness leads to chance encounter that improves Johnny's whole semester.

Love in the Library

Downstairs waited another half dozen more


carts like the one I dragged around behind me. I could almost


believe no one else on any of the other shifts even bothered with


the returns. Fuck it.With no one to watch over me, I began


sticking books onto the shelves haphazardly, wherever they fit. Who


cared if their Dewey Decimal numbers lined up in sequence or not?


Any student looking for a particular book would find it no matter


where I put it on the shelf. As long as it was somewhere near where


it was supposed to be, right? I mean, who really gave a shit?


With my new system, the cart emptied much


quicker than before and by quarter after eight, I was in the


elevator again, heading down for the next batch of books. I wanted


to get through all the carts before I left at midnight—a job well


done on first glance, but the books would be scattered around the


library, filed on the wrong shelves, the wrong stacks, the wrong


Chapter 5