One of Liberty’s favorite places in all of Carstairs was the library. There was an endless amount of books for her to enjoy and it was a peaceful place (most of the time) that seemed isolated from the rest of the world. Here she could curl up with a good book and enjoy her time off from studying. And that is exactly what Libby was doing this Wednesday afternoon. Stationed by herself at one of the tables in the reading area, Liberty was engrossed in a book that seemed three-fourths finished already, though she had only arrived an hour ago. The two-inch thick book would seem intimidating to some, but she had chosen to read it, and was excited in fact.

After class, Liberty had managed to brush through her homework so that she could have time to set aside for this book. The library had just received a new copy of it since the last one had been misplaced, and the curly-haired blonde couldn’t wait to get her hands on it. The Biography of Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry. Almost running to the table, Libby had been so excited to start the book. An hour had passed by without her even ungluing her eyes from the text. A whole hoard of elephants could have ran through the library that moment and Liberty would not have even noticed.

The barrier of silence that she had created around her suddenly burst with the unexpected words, causing a small gasp to jump from Liberty’s mouth. She hadn’t even noticed the boy’s presence until he spoke, and it wasn’t until then that she finally tore her eyes away from the text. She looked up at him for a moment, wide-eyed like a deer caught in headlights. However, they did soften shortly after, drifting back to the book for a moment. She wasn’t ignoring him or anything, and hoped he didn’t think that, but Liberty was just really shy… She wasn’t very good at conversation with strangers, especially boys. Luckily he happened to ask her a question that involved her absolute favorite thing in the world. Now she just had to think about how to word it right before she opened her mouth again, in which case she would start rambling on about the wonders of the periodic table.

Settling on limiting her answer to a few simple sentences, Liberty looked up again, giving him a small smile so that he didn’t think she was trying to be rude. It was odd how being shy and socially awkward was often confused with being snobby and stuck up. “It’s fascinating actually…” she never understood how people could find chemistry, or science for that matter, boring. “Now try not to sound like a dork.” she had to mentally warn herself before continuing. “I mean, it’s the properties of matter; what makes up every living and non-living thing! This indestructible force that’s invisible to the human eye, and yet it can destroy whole countries, or create an entire bodies of water! I mean, if you think about it, everything can root back to chemistry and-” Liberty spoke about chemistry like one would speak about their lover, or something they were equally passionate about, the excitement glittering in her eyes. However, she realized she had managed to revert back to nerd mode, and quickly cut herself off from saying any more. Her sky-blue orbs drifted away from his and managed to find a not-so-fascinating spot on the table to focus on.

Liberty nervously played with the corner of the page in her book, bending it backwards and forwards. She was preparing for the whole ‘tease the nerd’ act that usually followed when she gushed about her love for chemistry. Because she didn’t ‘look’ like a typical nerd, Libby often got approached and hit on, but when they quickly came to see her true personality, most would just laugh in her face and walk away. She didn’t mind though, because she was content with the friends she already had and didn’t need people who would only laugh at her anyway. However, when no laughter was present, Liberty looked up at the boy, studying his face to try and figure out of he was being sarcastic or not. She wasn’t very good at reading sarcasm…

It was rare that anyone was ever interested in her going on about science if they didn’t already have a previous love for science. So rare in fact, Liberty couldn’t remember it ever happening before… She blushed slightly at his question, eyes drifting toward the floor for a moment before looking back up to answer his question. It wasn’t the first time she’d been asked the question… and it wasn’t that she was embarrassed of her A average, but it seemed high school kids seemed to look at getting good grades as a ‘bad’ thing… something Liberty had been very confused about ever since she had entered high school. “No, actually…” she replied rather shyly, “I have a B in art...” It was a rather embarrassing fact she didn’t exactly like to admit. I mean, who got B’s in art? But Liberty just wasn’t good at it… Her main problem was that she approached it too much from a logical and scientific angle, rather than letting her creativity take over. If it wasn’t a geometric shape that could be made by a ruler, Libby just couldn’t get it right. Especially proportions.

As the boy, whom she now knew was named Gabriel, sat down across from her, Liberty was a bit surprised that he was actually staying. It was usually by now that she scared people off with her awkward weirdness. “It’s nice to meet you Gabriel” she replied politely, “My name is Liberty.”