Is This a Cry for Help?

by Emily Austin

Genres: Black Humor; Literary Fiction; LGBT Lesbian

Synopsis

Emily Austin, the bestselling “queen of darkly quirky, endearingly flawed heroines” (Sarah Haywood, author of The Cactus), returns with a luminous new novel following a librarian who comes back to work after a mental breakdown only to confront book-banning crusaders in an empowering story of grief, love, and the power of libraries.

Darcy’s life turned out better than she could have ever imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife Joy runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections, various knickknacks and bobbles, and dried bouquets. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake.

But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she returns to work, she is met by unrest in her community, and protests surrounding intellectual freedom, resulting in a call for book bans and a second look at the branch’s upcoming DEI programs.

Through the support of her community, colleagues, and the personal growth that results from examining her previous relationships, Darcy comes into her own agency and the truest version of herself. Is This a Cry for Help? not only offers a moving portrait of queer life after coming of age but also powerfully explores questions about sexuality, community, and the importance of libraries.

Release date: January 13, 2026

Publisher: Atria Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE
A patron is watching porn out loud. My job at the library requires I walk behind him to verify what kind of porn it is, and if it involves anything illegal, I get to call 911. If it doesn’t, I’m not supposed to do any-thing.

I walk behind him discreetly. While pretending to adjust a book display about earthworms, I see the film stars three women who appear to be of consenting age. It’s titled Vintage Lesbian Cuckhold, which I find curious. A cuckhold is the husband of an adulterous wife; however, this film has no men cast, and it appears to have been taped on film stock from the 1970s. Same-sex marriage wasn’t legalized anywhere at that time, so these women couldn’t possibly be married. Therefore, it’s impossible for this to be a true “cuckhold” film.

I also doubt, based on the performances, that any of the women are actually lesbians. I’m somewhat of a stickler for categorization. It bothers me when material is mislabeled. I care that things are marked and classified properly.

Several people are milling around the computers. A middle-aged woman. An elderly couple. A small pack of goth teens. Rather than speak directly to the man watching porn, I announce to the room, “Please remember to use headphones, or to mute your devices so you don’t disrupt others. If you need headphones, come see me. I’m happy to lend you a pair.”

The man mutes his porn, and I return to the reference desk, satisfied to have fulfilled the demands of my role. I eye the bouquet of yellow tulips my coworkers left by the computer. There’s a note affixed to the vase. It says, WE MISSED YOU, DARCY.

My coworker Patty is manning the circulation desk nearby. She waves at me.

I smile at her. Today is my first day back at work. I was gone for two months because I had a mental breakdown.

A child left a picture book titled A Slug of a Different Color on the floor. I flip through it and see it’s about a slug who was born on a horse farm. He tries to live like the horses. He samples their salt lick, grazes in their pastures, and attempts to whinny and neigh. He dreams about galloping through their trails—feeling branches comb through his coarse mane. Of course, he can’t grow hair, run, or withstand salt or sunshine. He’s a slug. He has no legs, but a moist, soft body that would dehydrate if salt came anywhere near his sensitive skin. It could kill him. He’s also nocturnal, and thrives in humid, cool, dark spaces. Unless there’s a magical element to this story, the slug will never become a horse, and he’ll probably die if he keeps trying—

“Are you aware a pervert is watching adult films over there?”

I look up from the book. The medication I’m taking affects my eyesight, so I have to squint at the hazy woman.

“Are you aware a pervert is watching adult films over there?” she asks again, louder.

“Oh,” I say. “Yes. I am.”

She crosses her arms. “Why hasn’t he been stopped?”

“Because you’re allowed to watch adult films at the library.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re allowed to watch adult films at the library,” I say again.

This isn’t my first rodeo when it comes to porn consumption here. I know the protocol. In my orientation, I distinctly remember being taught what to do in cases like this. After listening to monotonous employee onboarding about how to operate e-readers and request vacation leave, my ears perked up when the subject of porn was broached. Furthermore, I doubt we’ve ever gone more than one month without someone watching porn here. This is a public library.

“I’d like to speak to someone in charge,” she says.

I rub my eyes. “That’d be me at the moment, but if you’d prefer someone more senior, I can get you a form.”

UNABLE TO ATTEND DUETO MEDICAL ISSUE. SRORY.

I wrote this email two months ago. Prior to taking sick leave, I was in the middle of an interview process for a branch manager position. I sent this poorly written email to decline the invitation for a second interview. I have no recollection of writing it.

I dreaded returning to work today partly because I couldn’t remember if I’d actually declined the interview. I’d convinced myself that I just didn’t show up. My short-term memory is weak due to my recent mental health crisis. My therapist told me emotional overwhelm can make it hard to process and store new information.

I woke up several times last night worrying about this. I kept picturing emails with red flags, titled FOLLOW-UP ON MISSED INTERVIEW, and stern voicemails asking, “Where are you?”

Job applications generally follow a repeatable formula. I have strong pattern recognition, and I’m good at following procedures, so I have the skills to navigate a job interview process successfully. The wrench my mental breakdown threw into my application rattled me—not just because I wanted the job, but also because it disrupted a process that I should have been able to complete. I am dysregulated when I try to follow steps, do what I’m supposed to do, learn the rules, and still manage to mess things up.

I’m relieved to see I sent this email. I wish I remembered I did. I might have slept better. Though it’s bizarre I can’t remember writing it.

I usually have a good memory. I rarely have to look up library policies or procedures. I know the steps to request an interlibrary loan, submit a supply order, or issue a new library card. I remember what I wore on my first day of second grade, cloud formations I saw one Christmas morning, and how the grout peeled around the bathroom tiles in the apartment I had when I was nineteen.

My boyfriend Ben lived there with me. I remember taking a shower the night we moved in. I took my clothes off, turned the tap on, and stood with my hand under the running water. The showerhead made this shrill, screaming sound while I waited for the water to get hot. It splattered on the floor of the bath, and my body involuntarily flinched when ricochets of cold drops pelted my skin. I cranked the tap to the hottest setting, waited several more minutes, but the water never turned hot.

It was like that the whole time we lived there. The water heated to the temperature of an abandoned cup of coffee, right at the point where it could still be stomached, but it was unpleasant. It always felt like someone else had just taken a long shower and drained the contents of the water heater tank.

I like taking showers so hot they turn my skin red. I want to exit the room in a cloud of steam, like a boiled lobster. I want dermatologists to warn me, This is bad for your skin. I’ve read plumbers put apparatuses on faucets to prevent the water from scalding. I think it was set too cautiously in that apartment. In retrospect, it’s strange I tolerated it for so long. These days, I would call someone to fix it. I would even fix it myself.

I used to be someone different. Around age twenty-three, I split in two like a cell. One version of me is frozen at twenty-three. She’s a coy, dependent girl who doesn’t really know herself and doesn’t want to burden anyone. She’s dating Ben. They plan to get married, adopt a goldendoodle, and have a baby. She wears uncomfortable clothing; shirts that cling to her abdomen, jeans she has to suck in to zip up. She speaks in a high pitch, laughs at jokes that aren’t funny, follows rules, and apologizes too much. She endures lukewarm showers.

The other version is me now. I’m thirty-two. I’m a more honest, self-reliant person. I have a wife named Joy, two cats, and no desire to become a parent. All my clothing is loose-fitting and breathable. I speak in a lower, more natural pitch, and I don’t laugh unless a joke is funny. I’m still inclined to follow rules, and I have an instinct to apologize too much, but I try to resist. My showers would boil a lobster.

A mirror faced the bathtub in that apartment. My reflection startled me the night we moved in. I didn’t recognize myself. For a fleeting moment, I thought a strange naked lady was in our bathroom, gawking at me. The lighting in that room was harsh, like a doctor’s office. I could see cellulite on my thighs I wasn’t aware of. A shadow cast under the pouch of my stomach. Lines where my body folded when sitting due to my ghoulish posture.

I missed the mirror in my last apartment. It was small and round and hung on the wall of my cramped, dimly lit bathroom. I could never see myself fully in it. The year prior, I still lived with my parents. I don’t remember seeing myself in that bathroom mirror, but I do remember being rushed out by my mom, and always being afraid she might barge in. She didn’t value privacy. I did my makeup in a compact mirror, looking only at small segments of my face at a time. One eye. My mouth. An eyebrow. I rarely saw myself completely.

I remember standing in that bathroom at nineteen, feeling the tepid water hit my fingertips, looking at my reflection as if I didn’t occupy my own body. It was like I was looking at a strange drawing of an uncomfortable naked woman. It didn’t feel like I was looking at myself.

I frowned at my reflection until I noticed a small black dot moving behind me. It was a spider. She was in the corner of the shower, where the ceiling met the tiled wall. She moved the way spiders do, unpredictably and scattered. Tilting my head up, I wondered what kind of spider she was. What bugs did she eat? How did she get in? After several moments of watching her, I wrapped myself in a towel and shouted, “Ben! There’s a spider! Help!”

Ben rushed into the bathroom, grabbed a wad of toilet paper, and laughed at me for being scared. He crushed the spider’s body into the ceiling, leaving a dark smudge that stayed there until I moved out. After he dropped her remains in the toilet, he kissed me and said, “You’re safe now, dove.”

He always called me “dove.” That was his pet name for me.

I looked down at the spider’s crushed, floating body, and said, “You saved me.” But the truth is, I was never truly afraid of that spider. I just felt compelled to pretend I was so I could play the part of a meek, frightened girl, and Ben the part of a strong, brave man.

After he left the bathroom, I stepped into the lukewarm shower and told myself it was fine.

I’m still staring at the email I wrote two months ago. I’m glad I wrote it, but I wish I’d dedicated the millisecond required to review my spelling before I hit send. This typo-riddled email suggests I’m an unreliable employee who cancels last-minute, and I’d sent it directly to my boss.

I close my eyes. I wish I could go back in time and undo all the stupid mistakes I’ve made.

Joy would probably assure me this email doesn’t make me come off as unreliable. You had a medical issue. Who would think badly of you for that? She would say that this is just a job, and while I care about my job, it isn’t my whole life. The grass is going to keep growing. The stars aren’t going to burn out. At the end of the day, I’m standing here telling people to mute their porn. Nothing is so serious.

I bet Joy is wondering how my first day back is going. She sat up with me last night while I groaned about this interview that I couldn’t remember declining, worrying about all the people and questions I might have to face. She listened to me spiral, reassured me everything would be all right, and joked that we could move away. Change our names. Live in a cave.

I should call her. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear my morning has been fraught with weird men watching poorly labeled lesbian porn.

“Did you think someone was having sex?”

I’m calling Joy from the break room while I watch the white bean soup she made us for dinner last night revolve in the microwave.

“No, it was obviously porn. The actresses’ performances were overly theatrical.” The microwave beeps. “I’ve had to deal with people hooking up in the stacks before, though. I’ve actually suggested we rearrange the shelves. There’s a spot that’s hidden where I’ve found multiple couples—”

“Is it always couples?”

I reach into the microwave to stir the soup, making sure to keep it away from my face. Sometimes soups heated in microwaves explode if you stick spoons in them haphazardly. Whenever I microwave liquids, or any food with a high water content, I’m cautious. I’ve had a few traumatic experiences. A reheated cup of coffee once severely burned one of my eyelids. Another time, I accidentally detonated a potato.

“What do you mean, Is it always couples?” I ask. “Are you wondering if I’ve ever found people having group sex in the library?”

She snorts. “No, no, I meant—”

“The answer is obviously no, and I think exhibitionist threesomes are rare, honey. That’s got to be too much for most people, right? You’re either having public sex, or a threesome. To do both would be over-the-top—”

She laughs. “I was thinking more like one person. I meant, like, do you ever find one person masturbating?”

“Oh. Yes. Of course. We get that all the time.”

Some people do atrocious things in libraries. Get into fistfights. Film content for their OnlyFans. Urinate in the elevators.

She says, “You have a difficult job. Hey, why haven’t we ever had sex in the library?”

I put the soup back into the microwave. “Because it’s unsanitary, and I’d get fired. Plus, I know the guys who watch our security footage, and we’d have to move away. Change our names. Live in a cave.”

She snorts. “Okay. Fair. Besides this porn incident, how’s your morning been? How are you feeling?”

“Good.” I watch the soup turn. “My coworkers got me tulips, and I checked my outbox and saw I did decline that second interview.”

“Did you? That’s great news,” she says.

“Mhm. I’m relieved I didn’t just not show up, but the email had typos. It makes me look like a flake. I doubt there’s any chance I get that job now.”

“Why would that make you look like a flake? They know you were off sick.”

Joy wouldn’t think negatively of someone for missing a meeting due to illness, but she always assumes the best in people. Whenever I voice worries I have about how others might negatively perceive me, she’s always baffled. Why would anyone think that? How do these thoughts even occur to you?

The timer on the microwave is almost up. “I just wish I’d handled it differently.”

“I’m sorry this is making you feel bad, but I don’t think you should beat yourself up. I know that job mattered to you, but regardless of what happens, everything’s okay.”

I knew she would say something like this, and she’s probably right. It doesn’t really matter. I did want that job, but I don’t need to dwell on it. I have this tendency to get hung up on things that are outside my control.

I inhale. “Yeah. Everything’s okay. It’s not like this is life or death—”

My stomach drops. The microwave beeps. Why did I mention death?

“It’s okay.” She senses I’ve accidentally set myself off.

All the hairs on my body are standing up. The microwave beeps again. I’m picturing his name in the newspaper.

Joy’s voice cuts through that image. “Hey, I miss you skulking around the house.”

She’s trying to distract me. I close my eyes tight. I’m picturing his hands. The hairs on his knuckles.

She says, “There’s no one around to interrupt my work. I’m getting way too much done.”

I clench my eyes closed tighter. BEEP. I try to picture Joy working. She runs a bookbinding business out of a workshop on our property.

“You can come home if you need to, you know,” she says quietly.

I’m picturing her wearing her canvas apron. BEEP. She has her hair tied up. She’s gluing paper. Holding pages up to the light. BEE—

I open the microwave, and the beeping stops.

It’s not my fault he died, my therapist told me to remind myself.

I’m not the reason he died.

I say, “Sorry. I’m okay.”

My chest feels heavy.

“Are you sure?” Her voice is shaky. She’s never good at hiding her concern.

“Yes, I’m okay,” I repeat, partly to convince myself. “Why don’t you tell me about your morning?”

I want her to distract me.

“My morning? Sure. Uh. It’s been fine.” Her voice is quiet. I can tell she’s worried about me. “Sophie called. She’s going on leave tomorrow because she’s too pregnant to work. Her doctor wrote her a note.”

Sophie is Joy’s sister. Her baby is due in a week.

“Is she happy to go on leave?” I ask while I take the soup out of the microwave. I place it down quickly, and hiss as the heat singes my fingertips. The bowl was too hot to touch. I should have let it sit a minute.

“What happened? Are you okay?” she asks.

She’s always worried about me hurting myself. She gasps as if I’ve been shot when I stub a toe, or trip slightly.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, I tease her. “No, I’m not okay. That porn-watching guy just barged into the break room and attacked me!”

She gasps. “What?”

I laugh nervously. “I’m kidding. I’m fine. I just touched something hot.”

“Please don’t joke about masturbating men attacking you.”

I look at my fingertips. They’re flushed from touching the hot bowl. “He wasn’t masturbating. He was just watching porn.”

“Oh, weird. So, would you be allowed to kick him out if he was masturbating?”

“Yes, I’d be allowed to, but I probably wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

I grab some paper towels from the dispenser by the sink. “I don’t get paid enough.”

She laughs.

“I have to go now, honey,” I say as I sit down. “I’m about to eat that soup you packed for me.”

“Did you see I put some rosemary focaccia in there?”

“Did you?” I look into my lunch bag. I notice a pouch of tinfoil and realize it’s the bread. I peel the foil off and see it’s flecked with coarse sea salt and rosemary sprigs. It’s gold and shiny from olive oil. I say, “Wow, this looks beautiful. Thank you.”

“No problem. Be safe, okay? I love you.”

She always tells me to be safe.

“I will. I love you too. Bye.”

“It’s none of my business why you were away. Absolutely none of my business, but you’re well enough to return, right? I hope you haven’t rushed back, have you?”

Mordecai is in the break room. He doesn’t know what caused my sick leave and has made it apparent that he’s curious.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m feeling much better, thank you.”

“That’s great to hear. Boy, was I worried about you. We all were. Brenda told us you were going to be out for a while, and I thought, My God, I hope she’s okay. They didn’t give us any more information than that, you know. Just, poof! Darcy’s gone.”

Rather than take the hint and reveal what afflicted me, I say, “Thank you so much for your concern, Mordecai. That’s very kind of you. I appreciate it.”

“We got you those tulips because I remembered your favorite color is yellow. I wasn’t sure if that applied to flowers, but I told everyone that was your favorite color, so we just went with it. I hope that was the right call.”

“I love the flowers. Thank you so much,” I say, while a substantial drop of soup falls from my spoon to my chest. It burns the skin beneath my linen shirt.

I get up and walk to the sink. I soak a fistful of paper towels in cold water.

“Oh, damn. Do you think that’ll stain?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” I blot the spot.

It’s white soup on a white shirt. You’d think that wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I don’t know much about laundry. I can never predict when something will stain.

“That looks like a nice shirt,” he says. “Rats. I bet that’s the last thing you need right now. You come back to work after being sick and immediately wreck a good work shirt.”

I close my eyes while pressing the paper towel to my chest. Mordecai is too talkative. I’m often exasperated by him. I don’t dislike him; he’s kindhearted, he remembers things like my favorite color, and he’s good at his job. He talks too much, though. He’s always prying. Unfortunately, my tolerance for him is low right now after being away for two months. Somewhat like taking a shot after a long bout of sobriety, I feel knocked out by him. I also think he’s chattier than usual because we haven’t seen each other in a while, so he’s eager to talk. He seems to be speaking more rapidly than normal.

Generally, I try to appease him. I smile and nod. Today, I can’t seem to listen to him. I keep tuning him out. I’m facing the sink. Closing my eyes.

Ben did our laundry when we lived together. He lugged it in a rucksack to a laundromat four blocks away from our apartment. He used fabric softener and dryer sheets branded with teddy bears that made our clothes smell like baby pajamas. I remember he regularly took all our curtains down to wash them, which I found interesting.

I appreciated that he wanted to clean our curtains, but not because I actually valued having clean drapery. Whether our curtains were dusty or not meant nothing to me. I valued his intention. I appreciated that he was doing a chore for us, despite finding his choice of chore perplexing. Our priorities weren’t aligned. If he and I were on the same page, he might cook or do the dishes. But he never did that. He washed the curtains.

I’ve always been a tidy, organized person. As a kid, I put my toys away when I finished playing. I put my crayons back in the box. I couldn’t stand having dirty hands. My mom used to say I was the only toddler without sticky fingers. As an adult, I can’t relax unless my house is clean. I make our bed every morning. I wipe down the counters and run the dishwasher before we go to sleep. Joy and I deep clean the house every Saturday morning. We mop. Vacuum. Scrub the bathrooms. Wipe down the kitchen cabinets, clean out the fridge. That said, I’ve never been one for laundry. I forget to check for things in pockets. I don’t care if I turn my white clothes gray or pink.

Ben and I didn’t have a washing machine in our apartment. There was a closet that could be hooked up to one, but we couldn’t afford to buy a machine, and our landlord would sooner die than supply one. He rented out several buildings and didn’t care about his tenants. The heat rarely worked. We had mice, and there was this enormous crack in the plaster ceiling in our bedroom. Every email we sent that landlord went unanswered, yet he persistently wrote us about our utility bills being exorbitant—

Actually, I should say, he wrote Ben. He addressed all his emails to Ben, even though my name was on the lease too. He wrote DEAR BENJAMIN, as if Ben owned the home and I was his pet gerbil. A fragile, twitchy creature he took care of.

It was a grungy, unpleasant place to live, but it was nice that I didn’t have to go deeper into student debt to live there. The unit was in a secure building in a low-crime area. I felt safe there. Before we moved in together, I lived alone in a studio apartment where my packages were stolen and I was frequently catcalled on the street.

I haven’t thought about that apartment we shared in a long time. I don’t usually forget things, but I can’t fully picture it anymore. I remember the bathroom, but I don’t remember what number our unit was. I can’t remember which direction our windows faced.

For a long time, I wouldn’t let myself think about the time I spent with Ben. Now all my memories of that period are muddled.

Mordecai is still talking. “You don’t dress the same way for work as you do out in the real world, do you? I don’t. Sure, we can dress pretty casually here, but most of my real clothes are, like, band merch.”

I wouldn’t care if Mordecai came to work every day dressed as a hot dog.

“I’d feel a little unprofessional wearing a band shirt or a graphic tee at work,” he says. “I know Sue wears them all the time, but I prefer to wear a knit sweater, or something with buttons. I might make an exception if I were leading a themed children’s program, or something for teens, of course. But you know what I mean, right? I’ve got a collection of work shirts I cycle through, and I never wear cardigans or collared shirts outside the library.”

He continues to ramble while I stand at the sink, holding the wet wad of paper towels to my shirt. I’m trying to recall a time when Joy and I washed our curtains. I don’t think we ever have. I’m not sure I know how to wash curtains. Can they just be tossed into a regular machine? Do they need a more heavy-duty cycle, or something gentler? We have white drapes over our front windows, and in our bedroom. They’re lightweight and sheer. Our cats are always basking in the sunlight that breaks through them. We bought our house six years ago, and I don’t think we’ve ever washed those curtains.

“Can I ask you a question?”

A man in an ill-fitting suit is hovering by the reference desk. I minimize the website open on my screen. I was looking up how to wash curtains.

There’s a prominent sign suspended above my head labeled QUESTIONS?, and I’m wearing a sizable pin on my vest that reads ASK ME ANYTHING.

I smile. It’s important to control your body language when you man the reference desk. People should feel welcomed and comfortable approaching me. Even when someone asks a nonsensical or obvious question, I need to present as interested and gracious.

I nod. “Yes, of course you can.”

“Can I record it?” he asks, holding out his phone.

“Sure.”

Sometimes people like to record conversations. This is especially true of people with anxiety, attention deficit disorder, as well as some other disabilities. I always say yes.

“Wonderful.” He hits record. “I’m a correspondent with Liberty Lately. We’re doing a story about your pornography policy. A distraught woman contacted me today voicing her distress when a local degenerate was spotted watching pornography on the public library computers this morning. She said she spoke to the librarian on duty. Was that you, miss?”

I nod. It seems I’ve misread this man. He isn’t a patron with ADD. He’s a reporter. Though I guess he could be both.

“Can you please answer verbally, for the recording?” He taps on his phone.

I lean toward his phone. “Yes, that was me, and I’m actually a Mrs.”

Joy and I have been married for six months now.

“Can you explain why you would allow the public library, which is funded by citizens like that woman, to devolve into a godless sex hole?”

I stifle an urge to laugh. It’s important not to laugh at patrons. It’s impolite, and it can be off-putting, depending on the context.

“The library is not a godless sex hole.” I lean toward the phone. “The public library is actually a democratic institution. For democracies to work, citizens nee