How I Loved You
I loved him. Not in the way you love the taste of a Sunday morning coffee or the sun on a warm summer's afternoon. I loved him in the way I love a well-used and adored book, the corners have been turned into those ears to mark pages that defined it and stains of wear decorated the pages.
He was a novel, yearning to be read once again, to be held and understood. In the wait for the perfect reader, he ignored the one close to home, the one who had loved those pages before, had carried it, and causes some of those creases.
But that's when I stumbled upon this book, the weathered spine drawing me in as I drug the tip of my finger along the lettered title. A title so short, yet it held so much value and weight, some I had not yet experienced but will. Beginning to read and opening the front, I was not only absorbing the stories and as much information as this worn, tired book had allowed, I poured myself and my emotions into it, into him. The reserved nature he fronted was one of ill-trust, whether it had been just precautionary or if it was built out of being let down and slid back onto the shelf too many times before.
I read every word I was allotted, hung on to each use of punctuation, and every change in vocabulary. When I felt myself falling into this narrative of him, it was much too late for me, I had been consumed in a passion that I was not aware of how to escape, and not sure that I wanted to.
And so, my walls crashed down and I withered into a novel right along side of him, silently begging he would read me and admire me all the same. For that while, that bittersweet period of time, he did. I flipped and flipped through his pages, learning every black inked letter and deep rooted crinkle. But then I reached blank pages. Not yet filled, not yet learned, not yet spoken, not yet loved, and not yet written. Nothing but this could have made me fall more in love and it did, I wanted to know what my title typed along his pages would look like. Would my name decorate the off-white textured paper? Would I look as beautiful and elegant as the ones that came before? So many questions began to form alongside the ones that had not been answered yet and oh, did I want to stay to see them granted the knowledge.
In all this focus, dedication to a novel I had dove myself into, I forgot that I, too, was made of paper, so fragile. A candle had been knocked down onto my inked composition and I was set ablaze. At this rate there was no other option than to crawl away from my paper lover, afraid that my destruction would singe him too. His words, written onto the chapter of me had changed. The love and admiration became desperation as he saw my sparing of him from my mess as slipping away. Trying only got him so far so fast and his covers had started to close by the time the fire I'd adorned had faded away into an ashy smoke. Returning to a closed book with no intention of opening back up had littered the pages of him in tear stains of longing and regret.
I did not want to give him up, even as he begged me to put him back into his slot in the shelf. A novel much overdue, begging for me to give up on renewing him for further reading, further writing. With every ounce of apprehension, he found his way back to where I had found him and a old reader had walked in alongside me as I attempted to flatten the creases on my pages, lingering over an unfinished sentence, forever taunting me with "what if". I watched as she picked him up, knowing exactly the way to hold him and the pages that held the most memories without hesitation. She had read and loved this novel before, she had never truly left as the desire of his muse to finish his pages. Right there as I tried to dust the ashes off and prevent the smearing ink from smudging across important moments I never wanted to lose, she sat down and opened the novel of herself. Showing him all of her as she had done before, he did not falter a second to return her gesture, her love. He was the novel that she had loved and valued, much more than any she had ever read or skimmed through. She was the reader he waited to be held and taken home with, to be his forever home. I knew deep down, this was how it was meant to be, they had found their pair. I was a finished chapter and they were the reprise.
I had given up on him filling in that last sentence and closed my book, waiting. Knowing that eventually someone would find me a book worth reading and maybe, just maybe, they can create the next chapter in my book. Seeing the unfinished novella before in they would write a simple, "fin", closing my mind from ever truly wanting those words finished.
But until then, this shelf had become my home and my love for his story had never dwindled as I wished the best for him and his rightful owner. Perhaps I love him like a novel, but I will love him in that sunday cup of coffee and the sunlight on a warm summer's day.”
