Every day Alicia goes to the bookstore. Before it was just routine in her search for books with interesting stories, but it's been a month since her goal was not just books anymore.
Ever since Esther, the daughter of the bookstore owner, started working as a clerk, Alicia had been going to the store just so she could see and admire Esther.
Alicia didn't even know why she was doing this. Up until the moment she saw Esther, Alicia didn't have the slightest interest in other people unless they were characters in books, but then, when she first saw Esther, she felt something strange change inside her.
Her heart sped up, her hands sweated, her throat went dry and a sudden chill rose in her belly. Despite never having felt anything like this, Alicia knew the symptoms, but she denied the possibility because she thought that was an unanswerable feeling.
The reason for this were two things, the prejudice in her country towards homosexuals was something strong and Alicia did not think she was beautiful enough to be attractive to Esther.
However, many people who knew Alicia's appearance would disagreed with her low self-esteem, because despite her self-deprecation, she was beautiful.
Alicia was a seventeen-year-old girl with straight black hair long down to her ass, her eyes were dark blue and her smile brought a sense of relief to those who saw it.
However, she hardly attracted anyone sexually and the reason for this was her clothes.
Alicia always wore dark jeans, dark colored shirts and the same baggy coat and sneakers whenever she went out. Aside from her clothes, it was hard to see her face because of her bangs that fell on it and also because Alicia was too shy.
With all that against her, Alicia didn't have the confidence to even talk to Esther who, in addition to being beautiful and stylish, had a brilliant personality.
Esther's hair was also black, but it was short and wavy, her eyes were dark brown and her smile had a unique and attractive charm, making many types of people want to approach her. She liked to wear light clothing and even when it was cold her outfit was a dress, scarf and boots or something like that.
Considering all this, Alicia only watched Esther from afar when she went to the bookstore, but that was all about to change.
It was raining a lot that day, but Alicia still went to the bookstore with the excuse of buying a new book.
"You really like to read, don't you?" Esther asked with a smile that brightened that gray day.
"Eh? Huh?!" Alicia was startled to hear Esther's soft voice and was so embarrassed that she wanted to hide in a hole, but then this was her chance and gathering some of her faded courage, Alicia responded in a barely audible voice. "Mm... I like it a lot."
Esther smiled even more as she finally heard the voice of the girl who always came to the bookstore, looked at the shelves while stealing glances at her, then bought a book and left.
Yes, Esther paid attention to Alicia too, but it was something more recent than Alicia's habit of looking at her and yet, even finding it strange to be the object of someone's admiration, Esther wanted to get closer to Alicia and today was the perfect chance to start a conversation with the shy girl.
"Oh, this one is really good, I'm reading it too." Esther said as she picked up the white leather-bound book. "You'll see that you can't help but love the protagonist's sister."
"Hm..." Alicia lowered her head and shrugged.
Esther smirked, embarrassed by Alicia's shyness, but she was still determined to get to know that really interesting girl when she saw her.
As Esther wrapped Alicia's book, she tried to strike up a conversation again, but nothing seemed to break the girl's shyness and then, just as Esther had given up and Alicia was leaving, the town's emergency siren rang.
That wasn't just any heavy rain, but a typhoon and it would be impossible for Alicia to get out in that storm.
With a pale face and a trembling voice, Alicia returned to the counter and asked. "C-can I s-stay here u-until the storm passes?"
Esther smiled with her eyes and nodded. "You can if you talk with me."
Alicia, with her head down, widened her eyes and then looked around, to the rest of the store, and there was no one in the bookstore but them, no one she could turn to help her.
Well, it wasn't like anything about her situation would change if there was someone other than them there.
"Li-like what?"
"Hm?"
"T-talk a-about what?"
Esther looked up at the roof of the bookstore with a thoughtful and amused look, then with a big smile, she looked back at Alicia and said. "How about we talk about your interest in me?"
Esther hated beating around the bush and asking the girl what she wanted to know in a less aggressive way was the only way she could think of not scaring the girl, but obviously, from Alicia's desperate expression, she could tell that she failed.
"Huh?" Alicia widened her eyes, looking for an escape route, but it was impossible to get out of there. "I..." All that was left for her was to face reality in front of her. "I..."
Esther kept her eyes on the girl in front of her as she smiled, but soon the smile faded as Alicia looked like she was about to pass out, she was so pale. "H-hey, are you alright?"
"I loke you!" Alicia squeaked as she squeezed her eyes shut, not realizing she had mumbled for words. "I... I... really..." Alicia's eyes rolled and then she passed out.
Esther was without reaction for a moment, she didn't know what to do in that unexpected situation. She didn't imagine that Alicia would declare herself that way, much less expected that the girl would pass out there.
After getting past the surprise, Esther rushed to help Alicia and dragged her into the break room, as she didn't have the strength to lift Alicia's fifty-six pounds.
In the room at the back of the bookstore, where there was a sofa bed, a table and a minibar. The walls were yellow and a window blew in the wind that blew rain into the room.
After desperately closing the window, Esther opened the sofa bed and pulled Alicia onto the upholstery, which made a sound like old springs, making Esther feel irritating agony at the noise, but the sound didn't matter.
Esther had plans and it wouldn't be the agony she felt from the rusty sound that would stop her. She had never seen the girl's face, as Alicia had never looked her in the eye before and was always with her head down or her hair covering part of her face. Esther was curious to know what her face looked like and this was the perfect opportunity for that.
Sitting next to the sleeping girl, Esther stared at the face still covered with black hair for a while and then, she revealed the unknown face slowly so as not to wake the girl.
Seeing Alicia's face, Esther couldn't understand why the girl was so shy. Esther imagined that she had some scar or deformation on her face, but no, the reality was far from what she thought, Alicia was incredibly beautiful.
"Wow!" Esther expressed her impression of Alicia's beauty and began to think. -She declared herself to me, right? That "loke" is a mixture of "love" and "like", I imagine... Or maybe I'm thinking too much... But what if it really is? I don't have anything against two girls dating, but I've never dated one before... Hm... I don't know I can match how she feels. What should I do?
While Esther wondered what it would be like to date a girl, Alicia wakes up from her "sleep". Her head was clearer and she remembered perfectly well what she had done, brooding with shame inside.
Alicia opened her eyes shaken with the shame she felt and seeing an unknown ceiling, she let the fear take over again and as trying to get her bearings and searching for a way out of there, Alicia looked around and found Esther sitting on the edge of the sofa.
Seeing Esther's back, Alicia turned away slowly, feeling her face warm and her heart racing so much that it was no longer possible to feel it. Alicia thought that maybe today would be the day she died and still feeling very embarrassed, then she pretended she was sleeping so she could calm herself down and heard Esther ponder.
"Maybe it's fun dating a girl..." Esther thought about the possibilities and what they could do together, but then she thought about what was really important, the feelings. "But I don't feel anything for her, except curiosity..."
At that moment Alicia's heart slowed and her face went blank. She already knew something like this could happen and so she did her best not to get her hopes up 'cause it could hurt her, but something about that unintentional rejection still hurt.
Alicia continued to pretend she slept until she actually fell asleep and cried in her sleep. When she woke up again, the rain had already stopped and without waiting for an answer or saying goodbye to Esther, Alicia ran away and that was the last time she returned to the bookstore.
Days passed and so weeks passed, and Esther kept thinking about Alicia. The way Alicia declared herself, passed out and left without even saying at least her name, all of that stuck in Esther's mind and she started to miss the shy girl.
However, even if Esther missed the girl, she didn't know where to find her and was at an impasse over what to do.
Esther thought about looking for Alicia around town, but that would be a lot of work and winter had come, she would hardly find the girl. She also thought about going to the police, but there was nothing to report, after all the girl hadn't committed any crime.
Then one day, when she was helping her father with the bookstore files, she found a customer record and remembered that she had already used that record to take down addresses and contact details for the store's customers.
"That's it!" Esther said with a wide smile. "Dad, can I borrow this for a bit?"
"What do you want this for?"
"There's a customer I want to meet."
"A possible boyfriend?"
"No, a girlfriend..."
"Hm..." The man thought for a moment, his daughter had lots of friends, but most were all men, so he thought it would be good for Esther to get along with more girls and agreed. "Ok, you don't have that many girl friends anyway, it'll be good for you."
Esther smiled even more, kissed the man on the cheek, and hurried into the break room with the guest ledger book, hopeful that she would find what she was looking for.
In the break room, Esther sat at the table and opened the book, but then she realized there was a problem she had forgotten, she didn't know the girl's name.
"What do I do?" Esther laid her head on the book and tried to think of names that matched the girl's appearance. "Bianca, Veronica, Fernanda, Miriam, Eduarda, Vitória, Gabriela, Alexandra, Jeane, Maria...."
She said several names, trying to associate them with the girl, but none seemed the right name, all the names seemed to be hers, but none fit the face Esther remembered.
"What are you doing?" Her father asked as entering the room suddenly.
"I do not know her name..."
"Oh?"
"I never asked her name..."
"Pffft!"
"Dad!" Esther complained with the man's laughter. "Don't laugh, seriously!"
"Huhahahahahaha!" The man held his sides as he laughed hard and then asked. "What was she like?"
"Hmph! Is not like someone as old as you could remember every customer." Esther mocked playfully.
Her father was a forty-year-old man who had married work after losing his wife a few years after marriage. He was a kind and caring man who lived for two things, work and his only child.
"You would be surprised at my memory." Said the man who remembered every detail the first time he saw his deceased wife eighteen years ago. "Come on, tell me, what's she like?"
"She has long black hair, straight as if...."
"Oh! Isn't that Alicia?" The man said after hearing the entire description of the girl. "I don't know about the face, but everything else matches Alicia's appearance."
Esther's eyes lit up and soon she started to read the records in the first part, looking for the name and to her surprise there were six Alicias registered, Esther would have to check them all in the worst case scenario.
Well, for Esther it didn't matter if she had to check them all, she was going to find Alicia and that was what really mattered to her who was eager to go search for the girl, no, now the face had a name...
"Alicia..."
Esther kissed her father after hugging him tightly and ran out the door after grabbing her scarf, coat and gloves.
Esther was eager to meet Alicia again, but then, after three failed attempts, she wondered what she would do after finding her. Esther wanted to see Alicia again, but then what? She didn't know what she wanted next and didn't even have a real answer to give about the declaration of love she had received from Alicia. Esther had even imagined and considered dating a girl, but she didn't think of Alicia that way and wondered if it would be okay to go after her like that.
Esther stopped the car on the shoulder of the street and thought for a long time.
As she thought, her heart wouldn't stop pounding in her chest with an anxiety, making her biting the corners of her lip and shake her feet viciously until she finally made a decision.
"I'll go after her." Esther said it out loud to strengthen her resolve and started the car again.
After another failed attempt, Esther finally found the right address and was in the living room of a condominium mansion in the upscale area of the town, waiting until the butler returned with the person she so wanted to see.
"Miss Esther, my master asked me to take you to her, please follow me." Said the butler after returning to the living room.
"Where?"
"Miss Alicia's personal library."
"Library?"
"She has a lot of books."
"I imagine so, since she bought one almost every day at our bookstore."
"..."
"She lives here alone?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Where are her parents?"
"..."
"?"
"We have arrived." The butler said as he opened a double door. "Find the row of mysteries and follow it until you find the row of Drama. Miss Alicia is waiting for you on the third shelf."
The library was huge, there were five aisles of shelves full of books at the beginning of the place and more behind those.
Ester walked the path indicated by the butler and with each bookcase left behind she was more impressed.
There were books there that she had never seen in her life. Esther was delighted, curious to know the contents of so many books that she didn't know about and that seemed interesting, but now wasn't the right time to sate her curiosity, so she kept walking.
When Esther found where Alicia was, the girl was huddled on the library's marble floor, surrounded by walls built with hundreds of stacked books and immersed in a blue-covered book.
Esther saw that scene and smiled kindly. She didn't want to disturb the girl's reading, so she said nothing and for hours she sat there, just watching the expressions Alicia made in each scene, the tears Alicia shed in critical and happy moments, the sigh of relief Alicia let out when she finished reading the book and the look of happiness she had with her eyes closed as she digested the end of the story, Esther watched it all.
"How it was?" Esther asked with an anxious look.
"It was wonderful-????" Alicia was startled when she noticed Esther's presence and was buried by the books that surrounded her after she bumped into one of the walls. "Hyaa!"
After laughing, Esther helped Alicia out from under the mountain of books, but once she was free of the books, Alicia runned away from Esther and huddled in the corner between the shelves like a scared rabbit.
When the butler told her she had visitors, Alicia thought it was just her father wanting more money and didn't mind interrupting her reading with something so trivial, so it came as a big shock to her when she saw Esther in front of her.
Alicia covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, afraid of what Esther had to say. She still remembered the embarrassment that was her confession, the truth is that she couldn't forget the shame that had come back into her mind every day to torment her since it happened and it was only when she was reading that she was freed from that desperate feeling of wanting to hide for the rest of your life.
However, now here was Esther, the reason for her suffering and the target of her platonic love.
Alicia thought that Esther think of her as a disgusting thing and was afraid of meet Esther again. So when she saw Esther there, standing in front of her, Alicia immediately imagined that the girl had come there just to make fun of her or humiliate her for being such a disgusting and abnormal creature for liking someone the same sex.
Alicia didn't want to hear anything Esther had to say.
Esther looked at that scene and while she felt bad for causing it, she didn't know why she was the cause. Since Alicia loved her, shouldn't she be happy to see her? Esther started to think that maybe it was her imagination and again, while she felt happy, she felt sad and angry about it.
Wanting to make Alicia hear her, Esther sat down beside the frightened girl and calmly waited. She wanted to be heard and was in no hurry to achieve her goal, she would wait even if it took days and didn't even know why she was willing to go that far for someone she barely knew.
Love is always something complicated, sometimes it's clear and it hits you with a fist right in the stomach and makes you fall on your knees for the other person, but there are times when it's such an ambiguous feeling that it makes you make stupid mistakes and maybe only after losing the love of your life would you come to realize your mistake.
Anyway, the case of Esther and Alicia even in this was different. While Alicia knew she loved Esther, but was afraid of her feelings and Esther didn't understand how she felt about Alicia, as she had never been in love with a girl before.
After a long time in silence, Alicia opened her eyes and looked at Esther who was reading some book she had found among the pile of books sprawled there. She was so beautiful that made Alicia's heart almost burst, but Alicia still didn't have the heart to start a conversation.
"Can we talk now?" Esther asked with her eyes fixed on the book.
"Huh!?" Alicia flinched in her safe corner upon hearing Esther's voice.
"Look, we need to talk about that day." Esther insisted without looking at Alicia.
"N-no…" Alucia muttered, making Esther look at her.
Esther realized that this was by no means going to be easy, but she was determined and somehow, just sitting there was a relaxing duties. "Well, you can take your time, I have patience and time."
Hours passed and Alicia saw that Esther was really patient. Other people would have been angry and left, but Esther was still there even after five hours, Alicia thought it was too much and unfair to Esther if she stayed longer in silence and trembling with fear in a corner between the shelves.
Alicia took a deep breath and summoned all her courage. "W-why are you here?"
Esther looked at Alicia and smiled. "Are you going to talk to me now?" Alicia just nodded, answering the question. "I'm here for us to talk about that day you said you 'loke' me." Esther said and held back a giggle, making Alicia redder than a pepper. "What do you 'loke' about me?"
"C-can you stop it?" Alicia asked in a shaky voice.
"Puahahahaha! Sorry hahahaha!"
"Y-you came to make fun of me?!" Alicia asked in a loud voice, frustrated, reckless and bitter with Esther's laugh that was something beautiful and at the same time, scary.
At that time, Esther had a serious expression. "I would never do that. Sorry."
"Sorry for yelling…" Alicia looked down and said softly. "I like you....I like your smile....I like the way you say everything you think....How smart you are..." Alicia said several adjectives.
Esther wondered if she really had that many qualities, but anyway, her face was completely red after hearing so many sincere compliments and she couldn't stand receiving so many compliments anymore, so she said in an unexpectedly flustered way. "E-enough! How much do you love me?!"
Alicia looked directly into Esther's eyes and responded with unexpected honesty. "I love you more than anything in this entire world."
After that the two were extremely embarrassed and with red faces, they were silent.
Esther's heart was racing in a way that only happened when she was with someone she loved romantically or maybe when she was in danger, but then, there she was safe and yet, her heart was racing like that.
"I...." Esther broke the silence that had lasted too long. "I think I love you too...."
"Eh?!" Alicia looked at Esther, her dark blue eyes wide and glowing with some kind of hope. "You... A-are you telling the t-truth?"
Esther nodded. "Um!" She paused briefly and continued. "I... I wouldn't lie about something like that."
Suddenly a splendid smile appeared on Alicia's face, which made Esther's heart, which was already racing, even faster.
That smile of Alicia had become both a symbol of happiness and love to be protected and a powerful weapon against Esther, who melted by that smile and pulled Alicia by the neck and kissed her on the lips.