Chapter Text
Simon awoke to the strange sound of his new alarm clock. For a few seconds, he couldn’t remember where he was. Despite having moved into the apartment provided by the program nearly two weeks ago, he just couldn’t seem to get used to it.
He rolled over to check how much time he had before he had to start getting ready for work, something else that was still taking some getting used to. As he flipped off the covers and sat up, he looked around his small bedroom; the room was barren—a result of having left Eden with only a small duffel bag carrying everything he owned—but it was his and only his, something that felt like a true luxury.
Once he had dressed and eaten breakfast, he headed out to start his short walk to work. His social worker, Ava, had helped him find his job at the library as a way for him to get his feet under him. The walk from his apartment to the library wasn’t long, and he found he enjoyed the fifteen minutes to himself each morning. As he walked, he watched other people move about their mornings: some leaving for work, others just getting home, people stopping into their favorite coffee shops, and kids walking along to catch the bus downtown. That was something that had taken the most getting used to when he first left Eden: all the people. There were so many—out and about, meeting up with each other, loudly talking on phones in public (he wasn’t the biggest fan of that thing in particular). It surprised him, the sheer number of people that he saw in a day. It was more than he would see in an entire year before moving to San Francisco.
He reached the library and headed inside to start his shift, which consisted mostly of shelving books, cataloging new acquisitions, and sorting the returns they received each day. He was still considered new, and while he wasn’t in training anymore, his regular tasks could still feel overwhelming on occasion. But, as his therapist reminded him, each day things would feel a little easier. He hoped that was true.
When he had first stepped into the library, he had felt a feeling of safety that he had struggled to find after leaving Eden. The city had felt harried—full of people constantly rushing, nonstop noise from cars and buses, and so few moments of quiet. But the library—with its hushed tones of readers turning pages and the smell of paper dotted with ink—offered Simon a sanctuary that he could retreat into when the outside world got too overwhelming. He liked his job, even cared for his coworkers despite still struggling with feeling awkward around them, but above all he absolutely loved the books.
He went through them like he had been starving for them his whole life, and in a way he guessed he had. At the compound, the only books they were permitted consisted of a short list of theological books and a few children’s books that didn’t contradict Father’s teachings. Even those, Simon had read hundreds of times by the time he was a teenager. Having such unrestricted access to the books at the library had filled him with so much wonder; he took a new one home every shift. They offered him information about the new world he had suddenly found himself in, but they also provided him with a feeling of connection; the stories of thousands of characters were at his fingertips—full of hope, survival in the face of hardship, and, above all, love. He read nearly everything he could get his hands on, finding merit in every story no matter the genre or content.
Maybe it was fate that it was those very same books that led him to meet Ryland Grace.