Because it was his day off, Noah kept himself busy the next morning. He made another drive to Kalamazoo and dropped off some clothes and other items with Katie. They had breakfast together, and Noah left early with the excuse he needed to run errands. He was going to pick up some knitting for himself.

Noah’s first stop was the library. Once he found himself in the right section, he immediately felt confused. There were too many knitting books.

Most were how to knit sweaters, and others were fantasy or pop culture related (He would have to ask Katie to make him an alien hat). He settled on one titled Knitting for Beginners and raced to the front desk. He handed his card and the book to a young lady with curly black hair that was cut into a 50’s bob.

The young librarian scanned his items and stamped them. “This is due on the fifth,” she said happily.

“Got it.”

The woman squinted at him. “Aren’t you Katie’s boyfriend?”

Noah froze. “Yes,” he replied.

She smiled. “I’m Taylor. I work with her.”

“Nice to meet you,” he nodded, mentally cursing himself.

“I heard about her mother. How is she doing?”

“She’s hanging in there,” he replied. “Katie is staying with her until she recovers.”

“Glad to hear she’s okay,” Taylor said. “Be sure to give them my best wishes.”

He nodded. He was about to leave, but turned back and whispered, “Don’t tell Katie that I checked out this book. I want to surprise her.”

Taylor grinned. “My lips are sealed.”

~~~

After getting the book, he stopped by the closest craft store and bought a pair of medium sized knitting needles and a skein of green yarn (her favorite color). After that, he went home, flipped the book open on the table and started practicing.

Casting on thirty stitches was the easy part. Knitting was slightly more difficult.

At first, he had a hard time getting the needle through the first stitch. The yarn was too tight on the first row. However, once he got through it, the second row felt easy. Soon he was knitting like a pro. He felt gleeful with every stitch he made. This isn’t so bad, he thought.

Two hours had passed, and he had a whole square knitted. He stopped to admire his work but spotted something wrong.

There was a small but noticeable hole in the scarf.

Noah paled. How did he manage to get a hole in it? He looked at the book again. He realized he probably missed a stitch and knitted around it somehow. He groaned. He was sure he was careful.

Nonetheless, he pulled the yarn off the needle and unraveled his work. He left it on the table and got up to get a snack. Afterwards, he decided to play Journey, one of his favorite video games. He had played it so many times he could beat it within an hour.

As he played, admiring the graphics and listening to the beautiful soundtrack, he thought of the character in the game. Its wardrobe consisted of a red, hooded shawl so you couldn’t see its face, and a long yellow scarf with red and white designs. He always liked that scarf and wish he could have one of his own. The game wasn’t as popular so there wasn’t enough mass-produced products out there. Whatever was available was too expensive due to it being rare or made by other fans.

A thought occurred to him then. What if he could make a scarf like that? Maybe if he practiced enough, he’d be able to knit with multiple colors like Katie could. He could almost imagine how proud she would be if he could pull something like that off.

Once he finished the game, he turned some music on and went back to the knitting.

“Let’s do this again,” he said with new motivation.