Falling in Love (With a Book)

You never expect to fall in love.

It always comes when you're not looking.

Or when you're not sure what you're looking for.

You're reaching blindly out into the dark, scratching at something, until a hand finally reaches back. All you intended for the day was a coffee, a bit of time out with the girls, when that striking someone catches your eye from across the room, jacket hugging them just right, all sleek and sharp. Attraction is undeniable, but you're not looking, just out for a good time.

Something tips your favor, and you decide to walk over, just to test the waters. An introduction isn't a commitment, after all. Something clicks, right from the start. It could be the entrancing art stamped on their jacket, or the swell of words and wisdom that spill forth once you get them to open up. Before you know it, an introduction becomes a fluttering of attraction and suddenly you can't walk away. Not that you can think of a single reason to anymore.

You spend hours together, pouring out words and sharing a connection you can't put a label to. There are ups and downs, tense moments, and times where you cry from sheer joy at knowing this someone was out there, just waiting for you. Inside the honeymoon phase with the two of you, it seems as though nothing could ever break up your happiness together.

Eventually, the firsts run out.

The last new words are spoken, and though you can replay the favorite stories again and again, you've grown comfortable in your knowledge of each other. So you bring your love to meet your friends, your family, and you know they will love them as much as you do. Your someone is perfection personified, and the people who know you best will recognize that.

Except they don't.

Because there are flaws in your special someone, in your perfect love. Some you don't want to admit to, some that don't bother you in the way they do others. And though you're disappointed-- how could people not see what you see?-- there's a small part of you that's relieved, because this is a love that is yours.

It's a love that makes you feel like the only one who matters in a crowded room.

A love that makes you the star of your own Hollywood happily ever after.

That piece of your heart clings to your words, to your love, because though they may not be perfect, something about them just syncs with you. All their jagged pieces fit your jagged pieces and you feel invincible. They press up against your back; a reassurance that you will never be alone. You can't describe why you're filled with such warmth, where this love for this flawed someone wrapped in an artist's jacket came from.

But you know it's magic. There's something otherworldly in the feeling.

You vibrate on the same frequency. Their words are your feelings.

They speak to something in you that you never knew could be communicated with words before.

You never expect to fall in love.

You never know when you'll find the book that seems like your soul personified on paper.

But when you do, you'll wonder how you ever did without it.