The wall to the other side had a huge, antique wardrobe that my Dad had to dismantle and put together to get it in there.

The wall opposite the shelves by the living area held my big, awesome shabby chic desk, computer and its paraphernalia. On the other side, between the front door and bathroom, was antique, distressed dresser. It had on top another fabulous lamp with a delicate, etched crystal vase I’d bought for a song because it didn’t work but I bought it because I knew my Dad could fix it. And he did.

Nothing matched, not even the stools around the kitchen counter. I had random, quirky bits and bobs here and there, decorating surfaces and walls. If I had to give the look a name, I’d call it “Distressed Mountain Girlie Kickass Chic”.

And I loved it.

Which was good, I thought as I wandered to my couch, snatched up my iPod and threw myself down on it on my back, since I spent so much fraking time in it.

I stared up at the ceiling, smelling my candle burning (apple) and snatching up one of the many packs of gum around my house, unwrapping a piece and popping it into my mouth.

Bubblemint. I loved the taste, rejoiced when I discovered it, was addicted to it and chewed it all the time, even after midnight on a Thursday while I lay on my couch wondering what on earth I was going to do with the rest of my life.

It was likely that tomorrow Lexie, Laurie, Krystal, or a mixture of them or all of them would be in the library. Not to mention they could bring the rare but plausible additions of their other friends, Wendy, Maggie, Stella, Betty, Sunny, Avril, Amber, Jazz, Kayeleen, or God forbid, the crazy Twyla who scared me more than Krystal.

I’d been blowing them off now for a week, telling them I was busy with library stuff. Seeing as we were having increasingly frightening but strangely vague funding issues, this, thankfully, was not a lie. But it also meant their occasional visits became a lot more frequent and one, the other or several of them, together and separate, had been in the last two days back to back.

Laurie and Krystal had told me that word was buzzing through town, which meant Bubba’s biker bar and Carnal Spa then reaching out to the moon, that I’d gone to the Station and talked to Chace.

Word was, from their sharing it with me, correct. That word stated that I had gone in to make a report. Chace and I had been behind closed doors for ten minutes. Chace had stalked out, looking pissed and immediately went to his SUV. Then I had wandered out moments later looking like I’d been slapped and quickly exited the premises without looking back.

At this news, I’d lied and told them it wasn’t true at all. I told them about the boy I’d seen (and killed two birds with one stone by asking them to look out for him and call me if they saw him) and that was why I went there. Nothing had happened. Chace was looking into it and in the meantime I’d given Frank Dolinski a book and an artist had sketched a (very good) picture of the boy. All this done while Chace was absent from the Station.

They didn’t buy it and although I had to admit I liked that they came around, I knew the pressure would increase and I wasn’t looking forward to that.

But being the librarian in a small town wasn’t nine hours a day, Tuesday through Saturday of fun and laughter. Them coming broke up the day. They were funny. They were open, real and, unlike me, normal. And they liked me which felt nice. It wasn’t like I didn’t have any friends. But all my friends from high school had either moved away or were in committed relationships so I didn’t have much in common with them. We spent time together, just not very much. My other friends were accessed through a computer keyboard.

So it felt nice to feel like a part of their group.

I just didn’t want to share about what happened with Chace.

Maybe I would, one day, when it didn’t hurt so much to think about it. Maybe I’d invite them over for dinner and margaritas and we’d get hammered and I’d spill the beans.

That sounded like a good idea. An open, real, normal thing for a girl who had a life to do. Have her girls over, dinner, drinks, drunkenness and confessing your most mortifying, painful life moments so they could tell you all men are losers and make you another drink.

I popped my earphones in and since I should be winding down rather than gearing up, which was where my thoughts were taking me, I put on a one of my unwind playlists.

This worked until it came up in the queue.

Ella Mae Bowen’s rendition of “Holding Out for a Hero”.

Lying there like I did all the time, alone, late at night, in my kickass but lonesome apartment, her beautiful voice filled with longing, singing words I’d never really listened to, hit me like a bullet tearing clean through my flesh leaving a raw ache in its wake.

I didn’t even try to control the tears that filled my eyes. I didn’t feel the sting of them in my nose. I just let them fall as the ceiling above me went watery and the longing in Ella Mae’s voice, the beautiful yearning of the words ripped me to shreds.

I’d seen Chace Keaton at sixteen years old, incidentally, Ella Mae’s age when she recorded that song, and I convinced myself I found my hero and he was always there, just out of reach.

But he wasn’t just out of reach and if I kept hoping, kept reaching, eventually his fingers would close warm, strong and firm around mine.

He was just plain out of reach.

He lived in the same town but he was miles and miles and miles away.

When Ella Mae was done, I played her again.

And again.

Then again.

Then, tears in my eyes, I got up, blew out the candle and walked to the distressed, whimsical set of hooks Dad had mounted by my door. I grabbed my long, pastel green scarf and wrapped it around and around my neck, this pressing the chords of the earphones to the skin under it.

I replayed it as I grabbed my pine green wool pea coat, tugged it on, maneuvered the iPod around while I buttoned it up, nabbed my mittens that matched the scarf and pulled them on. Then I grabbed my keys.

I listened to it playing as I pulled open the door and walked out, locked the door, shoved the keys into my pocket and took off down the stairs that led to the back alley and my Cherokee.

I replayed it as I rounded the side alley and walked swiftly, shoulders scrunched, arms held up in front of me, hands clasped, through the fierce, arid cold that dried the tears on my face.

I replayed it when I turned off Main Street and walked through the quiet, dark streets to the elementary school. I listened to the words yet again as I slipped through the opening in the chain link fence and headed to the playground.

I was listening to it when I stopped at the swing set, lifted my mittened hand and rested it on one of the high swing set poles and dropped my head, pressing my forehead against my mitten. Listening and aching and knowing that there was nothing worse in the whole, wide world than the death of hope.