Kids should not be allowed in libraries. I never fucked him in a library, because of all the kids. We'd be leaning against a bookcase full of classics neither of us had the patience to read, his hand up my skirt, my mouth pressing against his chest to keep the noise down (because after all, it was a library) and some kid would start crying, and I'd realize, oh shit, condoms are only ninety nine percent affective, we might end up with one of those.

I was only ninety nine percent sure I loved him, that was the other problem. You can't fuck someone in a library unless you're one hundred percent sure you love them. Beds, eighty percent. Showers, sixty five. Cars, you only have to be forty percent sure. It's something to do with how easy it is to get caught. Or how easy it is to get out of the situation if you decide your percent wasn't as high as you thought.

He has no problem doing me in a library. That doesn't mean he loves me one hundred percent. It means he's stupid. And that's why I don't love him one hundred percent. If he was nervous about the whole library thing, who knows.

He used to ask me, "What's the worst that could happen?" He'd usually ask me in bed, where things were safe, because I was sure, plus nineteen percent.

I'd say, "They'd look at us! What would you say?"

"I'd say... Excuse me, do you know where Harry Potter is?"

"Why would you say that?"

"Because then they'd have to go find it. It's the law. Librarians have to do what you tell them to when you're in a library."

I 'd think of Caroline, the pretty young girl who worked in the back, but you could tell from her eyes that she was dying for the day when she got to brush people's fingers as she took their cards and inform them with woeful eyes that their book was due probably before they'd get around to opening it. I wondered what I could get her to do.

I never told him that Caroline is the reason we eventually broke up. He'd be kissing me, and I'd have my eyes open, darting over the spines of books. The letters would just jump out at me. L, E, R, O, A, C, I, N. Never in order, but my mind put them together quickly. Caroline. Or rather, CAROLINE. She lived in my imagination in capital letters. Anyway, she'd sit right behind my eyes and stare at me with such compassion that it hurt, reminding me that my books were due in two days. I hadn't read them yet. That's because I didn't actually like to read. But I had to get books out when I went to the library so we wouldn't look suspicious. I didn't like all the letters in books. I'd arrange them to mean other things, mean things, disgusting things, perverse and hurtful things, and I'd start to hate the authors for making me think those thoughts.

I never talked to Caroline. I only loved her sixty five percent, and she had the kind of blonde hair that turns brown when it's wet, and I don't like brunettes.

Later that year I learned when you're ninety nine percent sure, you do it it in a hot air balloon.

a/n: I'm not sure about this. I haven't written fiction in ages, and it's a different style than usual. I've been reading No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July and I think a bit of her has rubbed off on me.