Dear Jason,

I saw your book today in our old shop. The couple who owns it is still kicking. They’re still keeping credit written on sticky notes with number two pencils. I like visiting here knowing that you also grace the shelves frequently, but never having to actually see you. Just knowing that you enjoy this little nook as much as I do grants me a smile from time to time.

Do you also show up every few weeks, hoping for some new discovery to jump out from the same collection of dingy paperbacks? As if two weeks of your distance has somehow allowed for an onslaught of briliance to pile up and wait for your arriaval? And do you show up, every other week, a slightly altered version of yourself, exiting with a handful of new finds? It’s one of my favorite feelings: staring at the same books and every time, discovering something new. 

I wish I could tell you that I miss you dearly and would stoop to my knees if we ran into each other at the shop. You’d profess your love to me finally, apologize for giving up on me for someone else, and we’d live happily ever after like the dust mites in the heaps of outdated romantic novels. I wish I cold tell you I still think about you in the same glorious light that I used to. But we both know I’ve never been much of a liar. 

Is she all that you had hoped for? The right amount of passive to appease your confused masculinity but also the correct dose of feminine alure that makes your bones ache. Does she make you feel like the books you read? Do you go back to her every day in hopes of finding something new, like a regenerating treature chest that waits for your hands to sift through her gold? Does she make you feel like the “new arrivals” table at the shop? I’m asking for a friend. 

I guess I also want to ask you if I made it all up. If I am the crazy one in this situation, still thinking about a boy who very clearly does not care about me anymore. It is very easy for me to dismiss all of our conversations and interactions as me being sucked into a ficitonal haze in order to avoid the daily drudgery. I tell people that I knew you, but most people don’t know your name. I guess in a weird, selfish way, that makes me smile. It is almost as if you were my personal oasis. Just please tell me I’m not crazy and that at least for a small glimpse of time, you had feelings for me, too. 

When you stopped even looking at me, I knew what had happened. You see, it has become my game. Crack open the shy boys to reveal a newfound confidence and allure that they use to coax another girl into loving them. It is never me. It is always, always another girl. A distant desire waiting for some adrenaline to kick it into action. I’ve done this a few times before and I am beginning to wonder if it is my own self-destructive tendencies that make me choose people who will never love me. I pick slowly but surely, and have come up empty handed every single time. I’m growing tired of this game and getting my heart hurt by lonely boys who frankly, don’t know any better. It doesn’t matter if they read books or listen to the right music, because in the end, they never want me. Or maybe, I always choose the ones who I know will walk away at the first sight of conflict or the first hint of temptation. I don’t know whose fault it really is anymore. 

My paperback boy is still out there somewhere, and it is not your fault that you weren’t the lucky buyer. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not like the girls from the books. I’m not going to wait for you any longer. Beyond these shelves, there are many buyers waiting. 

Sincerely,

Alex