If I Fell in Love With Books I Would Have Told You

Hello, my name is Abel Kitsmit Road. Ignore my second name. I’m going to tell you a story, a story about me and books. About her, it, and the rest. I would never be the same again after I read that book, and I hope that after you read this, you won’t ever be the same either. Because even though I never planned on writing this, I hope that you will learn of my mistakes and past. And that you will see her the same way that I did, even though I don’t understand it myself yet. After all these years I thought that maybe I could have learned, or at least heard what this feeling meant but I haven’t. Maybe after you read this you’ll know and you’ll tell me? Thanks. But also, I have to warn you that this story isn't for the light-hearted. Or maybe it is. The rest is up to you.

I sat in the darkest corner of my room trying not to get covered in the spider web the annoying spider aka Mr. Arachnid, was building around me. You know people fear these things? They just know how to annoy me when I'm reading. So, I'm sitting here reading, reading, and reading. Because what is a world without knowledge? I can read any type of book, from fantasy, to fiction, to non-fiction, to religious, to romance, to political, to supernatural, to comedy, to tragic, to horror, to life, to teen, to boring, to anything that can and could be read. I devour them all. Since the world is disappointing , I rather live here in a dark corner in which I speak to my books with my curious eyes and they speak to me with their venomous enthralling words. We have a special connection that can't be broken, because unlike human relationships, they aren't disappointing.

If I remember right I was in the last pages of Everything is illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. It was one of the best books that I'd read. That man is just the master of all writing. As I got to the last page of the book, I was happy. Another satisfying ending. But how is it that a person can feel an emotion so strong that they would give their life for it? There is no way that in reality love can be so strong, or real. Then again, that is why those books are called fiction. They are for the people like me, that find reality boring and unjust. Jonathan's grandfather, who was loved for his dead arm, decided that he would and could not be with the Gypsy Girl, even if she was the only one that really loved him . He would marry Jonathan's grandmother and have children, while during the wedding the Gypsy Girl would be killing herself because she could be only with him. Because of love. But I guess that this was for the best, if they would have stayed together, it would have given more hopes of the thing that doesn't exist anymore. But that fact that she killed herself, gives us that hope that there is still love, even if there isn't. It tore me apart that Jonathan's grandfather wouldn't be with the Gypsy girl because i too, had grown a bit of hope. I guess this world just can't be better than it already is.

It was time for dinner, "Get down here Abel, you lazy bum!" That's the greeting that I get everyday. Isn't it nice to wake up to that instead of birds?

I closed the book and stood up from the floor, "I'll be there now!" I went down the stair that led to the kitchen, because there are many stairs, and they all lead to somewhere different.

They had started to eat without me, as always. I took a celery stick and dipped it in hummus, "What are you doing?!" My father shouted with his cigarette between his yellowed teeth. He would never take that cigarette off of his mouth, not even to eat. And yes, I am aware that I did not write his name, I just decided that it was best if his identity, no matter how bad he was, should go unknown. It seems childish and immature to say his name for everyone to know.

I chewed slowly, "I am eating." I am very much shameless around my father by now, I lost all of my shame after the many beatings that I have received from his drunken state. The pain can't really be felt anymore either.

"Have your own! If you want to touch celery sticks, touch yours, not mine. Get your filthy American hands away from my food!" I forgot to mention that I was adopted. I am originally from Bronx, New York, Street #42 if I remember right. My so called 'parents' are from France. You see, one day, the French whiskey-drunk whores decided that they wanted a baby, and since they had tried to conceive many times before and they met a beautiful teenage red-haired girl, hence my mother, and she decided to give me away since she couldn't take care of me. But they didn't know I was American, and they hated Americans. And voilá, I'm here trapped in a french drunk infested house. But if I wasn't here and I was somewhere else, i wouldn't have met my now diseased grandmother, the woman that introduced me to reading. She was the kindest, sweetest woman that i have ever met. She was crazy,but not in a good way. She would only talk to me, and it was always about books, food, and men that she had met in her life. There had been a book in her shelf, the last one that she read, it had made her this way. She would barely sleep, drink, eat, or speak. But she was wise, even if everyone says that she was crazy, I knew that she was only in love with her book.

I remember that in my childhood I would sit on her lap as she read to me, and that kept happening over the years until she read that one book without a title. Then I would find her weeping in her room, whispering a name that I still can't recall. And one day I asked her, "Do you love that book?" And so sweetly she answered, "I only love you. Besides, If i fell in love with books i would have told you." I knew she was lying.

"Maybe you shouldn't be so hard on him, honey." My mother took another sip from her Vodka, doing the usual sip and spit routine, and chewed on her chicken.

Not like you care, "Don't act like you care after all these years." That's one thing that I agree with my father.

I took my plate and chewed on my hummus-dipped celery sticks and chicken as my father glared at me from across the table. I chuckled, he was so stupid as to get mad a that.

I ate as fast as possible so that I wouldn't have to sit with my 'family' for too much time, there is always a rigid tension between us when we're together. It makes me too uncomfortable. I finished in less than five minutes, washed my plate and went up to the house's library. I walked towards the book shelf putting some books away. I just noticed that there is only one book left for me to read, my grandmother's love. I had been so entertained reading other books that she had that I had forgotten that this was my last one. I have to admit, I am very scared to read it because I don't know why it made my grandmother crazy, but I'm a curious person, I will read it.

...Okay, maybe not now...

...Pick it up, slowly, it won't bite...Maybe it will...I'll just read it when I'm older...

...But then I won't have anything else to read, it's not like my parents are going to buy me books and I don't have money...

...Fine...I'll read it now...

I slowly picked up the book from the shelf, hoping the pages wouldn't fall out. It read:





I'm scared.

I flipped the book open.

I don't want to go to the first page.

I'm on it.

I'm scared.