Where Nobody Hides

listen

I went immediately home after I had finished at the bookstore, wanting to waste no time in reading the book as I was so anxious to know what all the hype was about and what Fiona’s thoughts were. Also, the added incentive of getting to see her again when I finished didn’t hurt.

After grabbing a light snack of a full bag of M&Ms, two Hot Pockets, and a half-full liter of iced tea, I made my way up to my bedroom where I instantaneously stripped off my jeans and changed back into the plaid pajama bottoms I had been wearing before I left. I wasn’t one for uncomfortable pants. Then, I plugged my phone into the charger and set it back down onto my nightstand, arranged my food in an easily accessible way on the coffee table in front of my couch, and turned on some music in the background. When all of my twenty-first century needs had been taken care of, I was finally able to stretch out on the couch, propping the book up on my chest, and begin to read.

As I flipped through the pages again, wanting to see her words as a whole, a page with a severely drawn line that circled around a block of text multiple times grabbed my attention, so I stopped at it. A Definition Not Found In the Dictionary, the text read, not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children. I stared at those words for a moment, wondering why they seemed to mean so much to her. I mean, sure, staying when someone wanted you to was an act of love, but I wasn’t so sure what trust had to do with it, nor what children did either, and how any of it pertained to her. Deciding to leave it for later, maybe even to ask her about it when I saw her next, I folded down a little corner of the page it was on. Then, trying my best to forget about the quote, although was still nagging at me, I turned to the beginning of the book and, at long last, started.

I read long into the evening, my eyes never leaving the page for even a moment, not when my phone rang from across the room, when the music stopped playing at the end of a playlist, or even when my two cats found their way onto the couch, silently asking me where their dinner was. The story itself was fantastic and presented me with ideas of love, and also of war that I had never considered before, but it was Fiona’s notes that really did it for me; she commented on aspects of the characters’ lives as if they were a friend to her—with compassion and empathy, cheering for them when they rise up, and willing them back up when they fall down. To the wrong person, someone who doesn’t understand the way books can come to life, it’d seem strange, but to me it’s comforting. She also, like a true annotator, thought upon what she’s reading in the form of rhetorical questions and picked the book apart so thoroughly that it’d make any English teacher proud, but she did it in a way that was introspective, and her conclusions reflected who she was so strongly that I could practically hear her voice reading them. Fiona’s mind was beautiful, yet you’d never even guess it with the front she put up, and that saddened me.

“Dave?” I heard my mom’s voice call from the doorway of my bedroom. “Are you in here?”

I snapped back to reality. “Yeah, I’m just reading.”

“In the dark?” she said, laughing as she switched on the lights then walked over to where I sat.

Noticing my surroundings for the first time in a few hours, I realized that the day had transitioned into night and I had been reading by the last sliver of light available to me. “It appears so,” I said, setting the book down—spine up to mark the spot I stopped at—then rubbing my eyes tiredly.

“You’ll hurt your eyes, babe,” my mom said, gently chiding me. “I made you some food if you’re interested. Dinner is not…” she paused, peering over at the food scattered on my coffee table, “…M&Ms and Hot Pockets.”

“Unfortunately,” I said, smiling up at her and chuckling. “I’ll be down in a second. Thanks, Mom.”

She strokes my hair once before leaving my room. I sit there for a moment, still getting my bearings, before hoisting myself up off the couch and stretching my arms over my head, arching my back, as I groaned in satisfaction. I grabbed my book from the table, sticking a slip of paper into it to save my place and tucking it under my arm, then walking over to my phone. I clicked it on, seeing that I had a missed call from one of my buddies, a text from my dealer, and another from the same friend who called me. Deciding that none of them needed my immediate attention, I exited the room and headed downstairs to the kitchen. When I got there, I saw that my mom had left a plate of grilled cheese and French fries along with a bowl of watermelon for me on the counter. Biting my lip hungrily, I pulled up one of the bar stools, sat down, and began to devour the food. As I ate, I continued to read, staying where I was even when I’d finished eating, determined to finish the book by the end of tonight since I was already three-quarters of the way done. Then, I’d call Fiona tomorrow, and hopefully see her by Wednesday.

After another few hours—sometime around two in the morning, I finished.

Gently, I closed the book and held it close to my chest, my eyes, still a little watery from when it made me cry earlier, stared straight ahead in a daze. Now that it was over, I had no sense of direction in my life. What was I going to do without Liesel and Rudy and Max? Their stories were everything I needed and I wanted to live in them for as long as I was able too, which proved to be not long enough. Yet, at the same time, I wanted to tear the book to shreds, not understanding why what happened had to happen. Amazement, anger, sadness, and contentment mixed around inside of me to the point of it being too hard to differentiate what emotion was what. There were few books that made me feel this strongly, and I was glad that this one was now amongst them.

Standing up from the stool, I picked up the book then walked blindly back to my room. When I got there, I placed it on my nightstand, pulled back the blankets on my bed, got under them, and almost immediately fell into a much-needed sleep.

***

“Dave!” someone shouted, ripping the blankets off of me. “Wake up, you lazy ass, it’s two in the afternoon! What are you doing with your life?”

Immediately, even in my hazy, sleepy state, I recognized the voice to be, much to my annoyance, that of my brother James. Not wanting to put up with his shit this soon after waking up, I pulled the blankets back up over my head. However, as soon as I did so, he pulled them right back off again. I groaned loudly and sat up, rubbing my eyes.

“The fuck you doing, James?” I asked in a mumble.

“Being an active participant in the salvation of your pathetic life,” he answered. “But first, who is Fiona Morales and why do you have her book?”

“Whaaa?” I asked in confusion, my head still clouded, and I looked up to see him holding the book, flicking through the pages. Instantly, I woke up and possession overtook me—her book shouldn’t be in his hands.

“Damn, she annotated the shit out of this book,” James said. “She must be smart. But the real question is: is she hot?”

“Give me the book,” I said in a low voice that conveyed the seriousness of this situation.

At my words, he raised an eyebrow and his mouth slid into that infamously infuriating smirk. “Not until you tell me who she is.”

I sighed heavily. “She’s this girl I met yesterday at the bookstore.”

“Yesterday? And she already gave you one of her books? When can I expect the wedding invitation?” he asked, laughing as if he just came up with the greatest joke imaginable, but thankfully, he tossed the book over to me.

“Fuck off, James,” I grumbled, reaching out to catch it then looking it over to check for any damage that he may have caused to it.

He, of course, ignored me. “No, but really, is she hot?”

“Yes! No! Maybe! I don’t know!” I shouted, throwing my hands up in the air with frustration. "Leave me alone!"

The smirk on his face returned, although that time it was much more patronizing. “She is. You’re blushing.”

With that, he left the room, and left me wondering what the hell just happened. I shook my head once as if clearing up the confusion in it, then started to lie back down, but when I realized that it was late enough for me to call Fiona, I shot back up and excitedly grabbed my phone from off the nightstand. Holding open the book so I could read her phone number, I dialed it into my phone then, taking a deep breath to calm the developing nerves, pressed “call”. The phone rang twice before she answered.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Hey, Fiona, it’s Dave,” I said, mustering up my most attractive-sounding voice.

“Oh, hi, Dave,” she said. “How are you?”

“Well, I just finished the book, so I’d say I’m pretty emotionally broken,” I answered, immediately slapping myself internally for not coming up with a more simple answer like ‘good’. ‘Good’ would have been a nice, safe answer, but instead I just had to say what I did, and I probably sounded like a total moron because of it.

However, in the next instant, she laughed—a real laugh, and the relief was so strong that I just barely kept myself from sighing with it.

“That book’ll do it to ya,” she said. “So I can safely assume that you liked it, then?”

“I did. I loved it, actually,” I said. “Thank you for letting me borrow it.”

“No problem,” she said. “But speaking of borrowing…”

“Yeah, of course. I’m available pretty much whenever, so it’s up to you,” I said. “Actually, I was also wondering if you might want to get coffee sometime and talk about it? It’s totally cool if you’re not up to it, but I have tons of questions.”

“I’d love that,” she said. “I get off of work at four tomorrow, so is, like, four-thirty, five o’clock good for you?”

“That’s perfect. I’ll see you then.”

“Looking forward to it. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Me too. See ya.”

I waited to hear hear hang up, then I did so myself. Setting my phone down on the bed, I couldn't help but to smile. My aimless, crappy life was finally turning around for the better, and all because of one book.