The first time Robin spoke to Vana, she was searching for something in the dictionary. Robin had been reading on the carpeted floor of the nonfiction section, the smell of dusty books and water damage rising from the shelves as she tried to get lost in the small, squished print on her page. But everything about the library, everything about place she held so dearly, felt different that day— the lights seemed too bright, the books like bricks, and the usual quiet...interrupted. By whom was the question that brought Robin to Vana's side.

Thud, thud, thud. Robin looked up to find a pair of heels strutting around her hunched form. Her eyes followed them to the reference section in the right corner of the room. Before she realized it, she was standing, slowly trailing behind the owner of the elegant shoes. She slipped behind the last shelf in the nonfiction section before Reference and peered between books to get a glimpse of her.

Robin's interest in the girl sparked when she found her flipping through Oxford English rather than the Merriam Webster's Collegiate. Most of the people at the library would just pull any old dictionary off the shelf to look for the definition of the word sitting right on the tip of their tongue. Vana was different. She'd brushed her hand along the spines of all the books on the shelf before she settled on the long, narrow book on that now lay before her.

Robin didn't know what to think of that, but it displayed certain characteristics from the girl. She couldn't quite name the feeling.

Vana sighed, closing the dictionary, and looked up. Robin quickly lowered her head down over her book, her sudden movement attracting the other girl's eye. As she stared at the upside down cover, she could feel her face burning. She hoped that Vana hadn't seen her— and if she had, that she thought Robin was simply searching for nonfiction titles in the Zs now. That she thought Robin totally hadn't followed her all the way to the other side of the room because that would be so incredibly odd, and Robin wasn't that odd. She wasn't.

But before she could pretend to be interested in zebras or zeros or even zymurgy, there was Vana, standing in front of her. Vana, in heels with a pink sundress and a denim jacket. Vana, with her high ponytail and wide brown eyes that made Robin more uncomfortable than she'd ever been. Just Vana.

She was overwhelming.

"Hey, do you know what diffident means? I tried to search it up in the dictionary over there but—"

"Diffident. Adjective. 'Hesitant in acting or speaking through lack of self-confidence.'" Robin interrupted, her gaze focused on the button of Vana's jacket. She couldn't look up at the girl's face without feeling as though Vana was staring inside of her somehow. She usually averted her attention to people's noses to simulate eye contact and make them feel less disconnected in conversation, but even Vana's eyes were too wide and too full of emotion for Robin to do anything but stare at her chest.

"Woah. Did you have that memorized?" Vana asked, clearly impressed. But Robin didn't want Vana to be impressed. She wanted her to be halfway out the door.

"Indeed," she replied awkwardly. She attempted to elaborate but only succeeded in boasting. "I have most of the dictionary memorized, actually."

Vana's eyes narrowed, and Robin's heart did that nervous thing in her chest. "Really? Hmm...what's the word modicum mean?"

"Modicum? Noun. 'A moderate or small amount.'"

"What about circumlocution? Word for word from the Oxford dictionary."

Robin's face fell, her eyes widening. Her mental process seemed to stutter when a correction was required of her. She barely managed to utter, "Well, um, I only own the Merriam Webster Collegiate Eleventh Edition."

Vana continued just as lightheartedly as before, appearing to take no notice. "Then straight from Merriam himself. What's disestablishmentarianism?"

Robin took a moment to allow her cognitive function to untangle itself. "Disestablishmentarianism isn't defined specifically, but there's disestablishmentarian. Noun. 'A person who favors the separation of church and state, especially the withdrawal of special rights, status, and support...er...granted an established church by a state; an advocate of disestablishing a state church.'"

"That's insane." Vana laughed, and Robin laughed along with her. Not because she understood what was so insane about spending more than half her life memorizing a word a day, but because Vana's laugh was the most hilarious thing she'd ever heard. It started out a small giggle and then crescendoed within seconds into a snort before returning to the soft giggle stage of its horrendous cycle.

"By the way, I know all these random words because I used to be a spelling bee champion. Not because I memorized the entire thesaurus or whatever, which still wouldn't be nearly as impressive as you. I've come in the top three places in eight out of the ten I bees competed in."

"Oh, really? That's swell!" Robin was genuinely interested. "Ha, now I wonder if you can actually spell disestablishmentarianism."

And then, without hesitation, Vana did it. She straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and spelled the word disestablishmentarianism loud enough for the librarian in the children's section across the building to shush her. She apologized, but not before her laugh returned for a moment. Robin couldn't help but smile at the girl. She had a god awful laugh, but she was adorable.

"Oh, I have another word for you! Define egregore."

Robin's eyebrows furrowed. "Egre-what?"

"Egregore," Vana repeated. "E-g-r-e-g-o-r-e. Have you heard of it?"

"It's not in my vocabulary, no."

"Maybe it's not in the dictionary, then. You should search it up. The next time I see you, the first thing I'll ask is if you know what egregore means. Speaking of the next time I'll see you, where do you go to school?"

Robin's face immediately soured as she responded with, "Kennedy High School. I'm a sophomore."

"Kennedy? Oh! That's why you look so familiar! I'm a sophomore, too. The name's Vana White, with one N. Try not to get me confused with the hostess of Wheel of Fortune. And you're...Robin, right?"

"Robin Park, yes." Robin stuck her hand out, offering it to Vana in an awkward handshake.

"Well I hope I'll see you tomorrow, Robin Park, Yes." Vana took the girl's hand in her own, and Robin's heart did it again. That nervous skipping thing. She couldn't describe it well.

That night, long after Vana and her heels had thudded away, Robin sat in front of her computer and typed the word "egregore" into Google. Her face burned as she thought of Vana and her laugh and her eyes and everything that made Robin so awkward around the girl. She'd never been more uncomfortable in the presence of someone...but simultaneously, she'd never been more interested by someone in her entire life.

Interest, Robin thought. Was that what it was? Was that why she kept thinking about Vana and the way she walked, talked, and breathed, for goodness sake?

"Egregore," she muttered, pulling her thoughts away from her meeting at the library. She didn't know it right then, but she'd remember this word for the rest of her life. "Noun. 'An autonomous psychic entity composed of and influencing the thoughts of a group of people.'"

  ———

School was like nails on a chalkboard to Robin (a phrase which she assumed meant "awful and uncomfortable"). Everyone talked too loud, and because there were twice as many students as there had been when the institute was built, they all rubbed against and touched each other. Just the brush of someone's cotton blouse on her arm as they went to sharpen their pencil or the metal part of someone's zipper grazing cheek as they pulled their backpack over their shoulder were enough to make her feel as though she was looking at Vana's nose the entire day.

In other words, she abhorred it.

Robin couldn't say she was bullied, per se, but she certainly wasn't treated the same as someone like Vana. People had noticed her awkwardness— the way she couldn't look people in the eyes and give anything more than one word answers without somehow making her way back to talking about dictionaries. They noticed her affinity for words, and they didn't think of it as cool as Vana had. In an attempt to impress one of her lab partners in biology the previous year, she'd begun listing off all of the vocabulary words they'd had to study and their definitions. Instead of being astonished, the girl had simply asked, "What are you, some robot? You've got the monotone and everything."

Robin had cluelessly replied, "Of course not! All of my parts are flesh," and earned nothing more than an eye roll in response. It was after this interaction that she stopped bringing her favorite dictionary to school and kept her words to herself. She started hating school more and more, feeling more and more stifled and anxious, until the morning she had her very first meltdown. Her parents then dragged her to her doctor who sent her to a psychiatrist who sent her to psychologist who finally brought her to a speech pathologist. Then she was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. 

She thought that was the worst possible thing that could have happened to her.

She couldn't be autistic. People shouted that word in the school hallways all the time. One boy would trip and fall or do something incredibly stupid, and his friend would scoff and say, "Stop being so autistic." And Robin would never understand how the dictionary definition of autism could produce negative connotations, but she didn't ever question it.

But then there she was, diagnosed with level one ASD. Autistic. Adjective. Synonymous with idiotic and embarrassing at Kennedy High. Example: Robin Park.

Robin's family started acting differently around her after the diagnosis. Her mother and father were swell most of the time, but there were moments when they would glance at each other while Robin was telling them about the origin of her word of the day. Her brother stopped interacting with her completely whenever they were in public, and whenever his friends would use that word with each other, he'd just look to her as if he were trying to figure out whether she would qualify as what his friends considered to be autistic. Her external family members would all give her the same look— a smile with sad, sympathetic eyes— and they avoided the topic with zeal.

She just wanted everyone to treat her the same way they had less than a month ago. But the new label the doctor's had tacked onto her had the power to change the way everyone thought about her. This was why she didn't tell Vana about it the next time the two met. Or the time after that. Or the time after that. Instead, she simply brought the girl to quiet rooms whenever she wanted to hang out to prevent being overwhelmed or worse— having another meltdown.

Vana seemed completely clueless. She simply thudded behind Robin in a variety of muticolored heels, accompanying her to libraries and empty classrooms and ignoring the stares that followed her wherever she went.

One afternoon, the two were in Robin's english classroom. Her teacher, Mr. Fiji, knew of her diagnosis and allowed the two into his room during lunch on Fridays. Sunlight slanted through the vertical blinds on the left side of the room, illuminating Vana's face and Robin's dictionary. Along with her signature denim jacket, Vana was wearing a purple skirt and boots that clacked rather than thudded. Her hair settled around her face in a curtain of brown, softening the intensity of her eyes slightly. It was easier for Robin to glance up at her face now, especially since they'd been hanging out for about two weeks and she was more familiar with Vana.

"So tell me," Vana began, opening her lunch box, "what's the word of the day today?"

Robin smiled and looked back down at her dictionary. "Today, it's remarkable. Adjective. 'Worthy of being or likely to be noticed especially as being uncommon or extraordinary.' Can you spell it?"

"Can I? R-e-m-a-r-k-a-b-l-e," Vana proclaimed. Then, quieter, "You're remarkable, Robin. I'm glad we met, you know."

Robin's heart did that thing again, but she'd come to associate this feeling with Vana already. She didn't understand how she was so familiar with words, but whenever she was around the brunette, she could only describe the way she felt as things or feelings. It was as though not even the dictionary could help her figure Vana out.

"Me too," Robin replied shyly, nodding. "I'm just glad I knew what diffident meant."

Vana giggled for a second or two, but her smile quickly fell. "Hey, want to know something?" She hesitated for a long moment before blurting, "I lied about that. I wasn't looking for diffident in the dictionary specifically. I was looking for something to talk to you about."

Though she was outwardly expressionless, confusion was added to the short list of identifiable feelings Robin felt at that exact moment. "What? What do you mean?"

"I don't know." Vana shrugged. "A bunch of people I know have called you the human dictionary, and I know that was mean of them now. But I didn't know what they meant before I met you. So I pretended to look for a word and then asked you about it. I just wanted...to talk to you, I guess. I thought it'd get you to notice me. It sounds kind of creepy when I put it this way, though."

Robin let out a breathy laugh. "Oh. I mean, that wasn't necessary. You certainly caught my attention when you walked into the library."

Vana blushed, but Robin wasn't quite sure why. Had she said something inappropriate? Was it necessary for her to apologize?

"Robin? Have you ever, I don't know, dated anyone?"

"No. As my mother puts it, I'm in a 'romantic relationship with Victorian era syntax.' I simply don't find the presence of people appealing— except for your own presence, of course. Have you?"

"Yeah. A few people. Some boys...some girls. None as remarkable as you. Of course," Vana added with a grin.

Now it was Robin's turn to blush. "Oh. Oh my. You're quite remarkable, too."

"Thanks."

The two girls fell silent after that, Robin flipping through her dictionary and Vana staring down the green chalkboard at the front of the room. There were only a few minutes before the bell would ring, and they would both go on to complete the rest of their school day. Before this could occur, however, Vana leaned across the space between the two and placed her lips on Robin's cheek. The girl stiffened at the sudden touch, electrified and vulnerable at the same time. She didn't know what she was feeling or if she liked it, but it was at that moment that Robin realized she wasn't interested in Vana White.

Attraction. That was the word. She was attracted to Vana.

And Vana, she thought as the brunette pulled away from her, blushing, just might be attracted to me.

"Do you want to go out somewhere? Perhaps a restaurant or some other establishment?" Robin blurted as she looked down at the word she'd instinctively flipped to. She was in the As now— the Aus to be more specific. She'd highlighted that word and all of the words that contained its root. Autism. Autisit. Autistic. Autistically. Autism spectrum disorder.

Unbeknownst to Robin, Vana spotted the highlighted words. It wasn't very hard for the girl to make the click between them and Robin's eccentric personality, but she didn't mind it, either. "I'd love to, Robin. That would be...swell. Just swell."

The bell rang, but Robin didn't seem to notice. She was too busy— too overwhelmed— by Vana and her laugh and the way she bit her lip. And similarly, Vana was captivated by Robin's fervent love for words and her adorable diffidence and her honesty. They were both enthralled with each other, but neither of them knew how to put their feelings into comprehensible words. The two were literature lovers unable to express themselves in English, or any language for that matter. There was no exact word for what they felt for each other.

Not even the dictionary can explain the intricacies of romantic attraction. Or, more simply, love. 

EDIT: Thank you all so much for reading Dictionary! Ever since this little story was featured on LGBTQ+'s GxG Teen Fiction reading list, my notifications have blown up. I just wanted to remind you all to vote and comment if you really like it! And I wanted to ask: what if I made Dictionary into a longer story? Would you guys read it? The next chapter is an author's note that I recommend you at least skim over, but this is the end of this story as of now. Tell me what you think about a longer version in the comments!