FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #9

It was the thing he'd always loved about her.

It was as if she was the only other person on the planet when she sat there, criss-cross on the ground in front of the bookshelf at her favorite place: the bookstore ten minutes from her house, where she spent countless hours strolling through shelves, reading the spines of books, and dancing around in her own world. Nothing could touch her. She could hide from the world.

When they came to the bookstore, she read the books in awe of literature, while he stared at her in awe of her subtle, radiant beauty that, at that particular moment, he desired more than anything to touch, to hold, to memorize, so it broke his heart that he couldn’t have her right then, when she seemed so innocent, small, and unattainable. He had to wait, because he loved her, and admired her sweet, shy smile and gentle ways.

The soft laughs, just barely audible. The gasps that caught you off guard, that were so quiet, you wondered if they even happened at all. The squinting of her eyes and chanting whispers as she concentrated and re-read the same lines over and over, until there was nothing more she could understand about them. The smile that formed every time she would read something she truly believed in. The way she'd take deep breaths with her eyes closed, imagining just what the author had written. When she'd open them, you knew she had just looked into another world, and seen something no one had seen before. The way her hair fell lightly over her face. The way she would sweep her hair back with her hand, just to have it fall again. The way she'd give up, and let every hair fall free, like waves. The sadness in her eyes when she had to set one book down to look at another. The way she was simply irresistable.

She couldn’t look at just one book at a time. Instead, she pulled book after book from the shelf and piled them up beside her. She’d look  through one while she had another opened, and read the backs of every single one, even if she had already read it ten times. The stacks would grow, and at times would topple over, but she paid little attention. When she was with her books, there was not another soul in the world, and the scattering of the books across her lap did not even cause her to blink or miss a word. Her world was peaceful, as if the toppling of the books was happening in such slow motion that it would take a thousand years to land, and so nothing mattered until that quick moment where books met ground, and the silence would be broken: just a moment in time.

To us, the books fell. To her, they were floating.

He would watch her for however long it took, and then, as she finished reading the last one, her eyes would glide across the store, as if she just remembered he was there with her. It was only a moment that she searched frantically because it all vanished when her eyes rested on him. The smile broke through her quiet lips, and he'd feel the sun shinning behind her thick, golden brown eyes, and the intense gaze melted their hearts as one immediately. He was lucky he did not catch fire. He would return the smile, then go to her, offer her his hand, and pull her to her feet. Together, side by side, they’d put the books away, and when every book was back in place, she’d grab his hand. She’d hold onto him tight, as if she feared the books would disappear if she left them, and cling to him to keep herself from rushing back to the shelf to examine them more. He adored her.

They’d smile at each other as they’d leave, and she’d look back at all the books she knew she could never afford, and the smile would fizzle into only a hint. He would look to the place where she sat on the ground, in front of the bookshelf, and smile at the fact that it was now empty and undisturbed. No one would even know they had been there. Her hiding place, the one only he knew about, would remain a secret.

She would remain a secret.

back to Contest #9