She looked up from her book when she heard a noise, thinking it might be someone approaching. Funny how you can be transported in between two worlds so fast and be brought back with a punch when a noise that threatens your seclusion manages to penetrate through the barriers of your mind. A lifetime can be lived in the chapters of a book, and she had already lived too many lifetimes to count. Some would say she hid behind books because reality was too hard to bear, and they were right. What’s the point of real life, really, when every step you take is just another step towards suffering and every person you meet is just in the corner waiting to break your heart. She had once been a great actress and she learned the art of laughing and smiling even when her insides were screaming when she was still young. What is life if not a big play? She could make friends in the blink of an eye but she could never keep them even if her life depended on it. Everybody eventually left. Her life was a parade of so called friends who would continually break her heart. No matter how hard she tried, how much she gave or how much she begged. One by one they left. They broke her heart continuously It’s not that she didn’t like people, though, she loved them. Their different mentalities, cultures, languages, accents. Their different backgrounds and tastes. She just never fit in, even though she tried. She could surround herself with people, smile, laugh, joke… But deep down she would still be alone. A defense mechanism against all the previous suffering. She didn’t block people out so much as keep herself from being hurt any further. In just how many pieces can a heart be broken before it’s enough? She never got the answer to that question either. And she lived in fear that she was very close to finding out.

 That’s the thing about books, though, they will never disappoint you. Books will never leave you, even when they break your heart. Books are always there for you. They take you flying far away and they take you in, help you breath. Books could make her laugh but they never charged for her smile, they never forced her to pretend to be something she wasn’t. Books never have any expectation whatsoever. She could always just pick them up whenever she liked it to read and then put it back in her shelves until she wanted to take them out again.  Books understand.