A Temporary Cure for Distance

She had always been someone who knew how to be alone. . Even before Norway, even before the long flights and colder air and streets where she didn’t yet know how to belong, solitude had been her old companion. Not always kind, not always chosen, but familiar. It had sat beside her through earlier versions of her life like a quiet passenger who never quite left the seat. . But this, this was different. This loneliness didn’t sit beside her. It moved in. It filled rooms before she entered them. It pressed against her chest in the mornings when she woke up to unfamiliar light and unfamiliar silence. It followed her down hallways, into supermarkets where she couldn’t quite read the social rhythm of people around her, into conversations where she smiled too late or laughed too softly or not at all. . It didn’t feel like sadness. It felt like erosion. Like something slowly taking shape inside her and refusing to leave. Some days she thought, If loneliness had a body, it would be heavy enough to pin me to the ground. And still, she got up. Still, she walked. . Still, she learned the routes of buses and the names of streets that didn’t yet feel like hers. , The worst part was that there was no single moment she could point to and say, this is where it began. It had just accumulated. Like snow. Quiet, patient, unavoidable. Until one day, she realized she was no longer simply living in a new country. She was surviving in it. And survival was a very quiet thing. . Then she found the library. It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t announce itself. It didn’t glow or call out. It just existed, steady and warm in its own restrained way, like a secret that had been waiting for her to notice it. . The first time she walked there, she didn’t even fully plan it. Her feet just chose a direction, as if something inside her had decided before she did. . She remembers thinking, almost childishly: I need somewhere I can go where I don’t have to explain myself. And the library, somehow, answered without speaking. The second time she went, she skipped. It surprised her. . A small, ridiculous thing, her body remembering a language her emotions had forgotten. A lightness in her step she hadn’t expected to still exist inside her. She passed the entrance and thought, I have somewhere to go now. That sentence alone made her want to cry. Inside, the air was different. Not warmer exactly, but softer. Like silence had been arranged instead of imposed. . Rows upon rows of books stood like patient companions. Not demanding anything. Not judging her accent, her pauses, her hesitations. Just waiting. . She touched a spine and felt something strange in her chest loosen slightly, like a knot deciding without permission to unclench. “Hello,” she whispered once, without meaning to. No one turned. And that was the point. , The books became something she didn’t know how to explain to anyone else. They were not friends in the way people were friends. They did not ask her to perform herself correctly. They did not require timing or cultural fluency or the right expression at the right moment. They simply were there. Thousands of them. Around her. Ready. . Some she understood immediately, as if they recognized her before she recognized them. Others resisted her, stayed distant, foreign, unreadable, but still present, still open to her return. And some she didn’t care for at all, yet even those felt gentle in their indifference. . No one rejected her in the library. Even the silence accepted her. There were others like her, she noticed. Not many words were exchanged, but she learned to recognize them. The ones who stayed longer than they needed to. The ones who sat in corners like they were trying not to disturb the air. The ones who looked up sometimes, not at people, but at nothing in particular, as if searching for a version of themselves that had gone missing. . After closing hours, when access was still possible with a card, she discovered a different kind of stillness. The library changed then. It became even more honest. No bustle. No soft background hum of life pretending not to notice itself. Just people like her. Sitting. Existing. Reading like it was the only stable thing left in the world. . Once, she watched an elderly man fold his coat neatly beside him before sitting down, as if preparing not just for reading but for disappearing quietly into pages. She understood that gesture more than she wanted to. . There was a coffee machine in the corner. Always the same sound. Always the same mechanical comfort. She learned the rhythm of it. Learned where to sit so she could hear it without it feeling intrusive. . She tried different chairs like she was testing versions of herself: the soft one near the window the hard one near the shelves the one tucked slightly too far away from everyone else but somehow still perfect Each seat became a temporary identity. Each visit became a small negotiation with loneliness. Sometimes she didn’t want to leave. That was the truth she didn’t say out loud. Not because she didn’t know it, but because naming it made it heavier. She would look at the rows of books and think, What if I could stay here? Just until tomorrow? Just until I feel less like I’m falling through time? . Once, she even thought, half joking, half not, that there should be small rooms somewhere upstairs. Rooms where people like her could just sleep among the books. Not forever. Just long enough to forget the edges of their own loneliness. . Leaving was always the hardest part. She would gather herself slowly, like putting pieces back into a shape that didn’t quite fit anymore. She would walk through the doors and feel the shift immediately, the cold air, the wider world, the sudden absence of the quiet protection she didn’t realize she had been holding onto. . Outside, everything felt louder. Less forgiving. And she would think: I was just somewhere I understood how to exist. And now I’m not. On the way home, she sometimes spoke to the air. Not because she expected answers. But because the silence inside her had started to feel too crowded. “Is this it?” she would whisper under her breath. “Is this what it is supposed to feel like?” No reply came. Only footsteps. Only distance. . And still, she returned. Again and again. Because even in the weight of it all, something in her kept reaching toward that place. Not because it solved her loneliness. But because it held it gently enough for her to breathe inside it. . And on certain days, when she walked up the path toward the library again, she felt something almost like relief rise in her chest, not happiness exactly, not healing, but something quieter: I am still here. And there is somewhere I can go. And for now, that was enough to keep going.