My world as I knew it was crashing down, like dominoes toppling onto each other. The first domino was set off, soon taking down every last one in its path, setting off a chain of events. My sister’s bright smile was the biggest magic trick the world has ever known. Her white pearly smile told you a series of stories: I am okay; I am happy; Please, don’t worry; I’m fine. But her intense blue eyes gave her away. Shattered fragments of painful memories scarred her wrists. She had a deep pulsating anger toward a world that was seemingly against her. I became the outlet for her anger.
I was always afraid to hear the next word, the next spoken dart aiming for my heart. When one of her brutal verbal beatings ended, I found myself longing for an escape. After a long day that seemed to have passed by in slow motion, I came across a book. It was called Stolen Children. Its open pages begged me to embark on its journey. As soon as I picked it up, I felt a passion ignite inside of me like a burning ember, too bright to see. I felt comforted, as if by a mother’s hug.

In a household full of landmines, I had found a safe haven. Books became the life preservers that I clung to in the sea of madness at home. Whenever things get too much for me to handle, I can always check out of the hotel that is my reality. I can always travel through Wonderland, go look for Alaska, find the thirteen reasons why Hannah Baker killed herself, or go to the paper towns and never go back. As my books opened themselves up to me, I opened myself up to them. I allowed them to pick through my brain and make my emotions surface. Sometimes, even when I was venturing off into the unknown, my sister’s black words crept up my spine, polluting the flower of my mind. Just like that, my safe haven came crashing down like a house of cards in the wind.
My sister was in and out of mental institutions. Her leaving cut me open, leaving me with an internal bleeding that only I knew. I was slowly drowning in the overwhelming sorrow that had been brought to my family. I tried to stay in contact with books, my dear friends, but was too consumed with chaos. I let my sadness blow out the burning ember that was my passion.

I yearned for that comforting feeling that my parchment friends used to bring me. It had felt like lying down under a hot summer sun, warming my skin and my very soul. I no longer felt as though I had a place to shelter me from the strong winds of life. Days got longer and time stood still. One dreary day, I felt drawn to something. I could hear something calling my name, but it was so distant, so quiet, I could’ve missed it. I shuffled through the jungle of junk that had accumulated under my bed.

I found my safe haven again, and a tiny light started to ignite inside of me. Scared that my old friend might reject me, I slowly cracked the pages open. The sadness and chaos that had clogged my brain seemed to melt away as I read the first word. Then, just then, I knew I was home. My passion became bigger than ever before. It spread throughout my body faster than a summer wildfire in the dry Colorado mountains.

As my passion grew, my sister’s strength grew, too. She was getting the help she needed, but the longing I felt for her was like a dripping faucet. I was unable to turn it off. Thanks to reading, I could tune it out for at least a little while. For those precious moments, it would patch up holes in my heart, like generations of a family quilt. But somehow, someway there is always a loose thread.

My sister came home for a little while, but the memories were just too much; they still had their grip around her. They still had the power to rip her in half as though she was a flimsy paper doll. She had to get out. Uprooting herself from everything and everyone she had ever known, she left.
I needed my paperback friends more than ever. Sometimes the memories of her words would sneak out and roll down my cheeks. I indulged myself on all sorts of books. Once again they became the very air that I breathed. John Green, Sara Shepard, Carly Anne West, J.D. Salinger, and many others used their words of wisdom to stitch me up and put me back together. Although I ached for my sister, I took great comfort knowing she had a chance to put herself back together like a puzzle, piece by piece. Words can kill, but they can also save. Words saved me, by becoming my safe haven in a household full of landmines.