“Tiernan?”

I blink, wanting to be left alone. But I sit up. “Yes?”

“Dinnertime,” Noah says.

He must’ve searched everywhere before finally realizing where I was.

“I’ll be down later,” I tell him. “I’m tired.”

I don’t even look at the clock, but it has to be around six. I don’t feel like a movie tonight.

There’s silence on the other side of the door, but after a few moments, the stairs creak with Noah’s footsteps.

I roll over and bury my face in the pillow.

But I feel something hard and move my hand, gripping the object inside the case. What is that? I lift my head up and reach inside, pulling it out.

I hold a worn, brown hardback book and peer at it in the dim candlelight, flipping it over to read the spine.

Don Quixote Vol. II

I smile and sit up, shaking my head. He’s such a surprise. He reads.

Of course, his shelves to my right are filled with books, but I kind of thought they might’ve been stored here, and he was too lazy to move them over the years.

Sitting cross-legged, I pull the book into my lap and fan through it, the smell of the old paper, tinged yellow, wafting over me.

I open it to the middle, hearing the spine crack.

I almost laugh. I thought so.

Although aged, it’s not broken-in. He’s not reading this.

So why is it in his bed?

I let the pages fan closed but spot something right as the book goes to close. I catch it, opening up the cover again and bringing it closer to read the black writing.

It’s funny how women come to me so easily now, it reads. They used to say that I was stupid in school.

Stupid.

Stoooopid.

Stoopid.

I narrow my eyes, making out the scratchy handwriting inside the cover.

I am stoopid.

But they sure like to fuck me.

A lump lodges in my throat, and my breathing turns shallow.

Kaleb?

Hurriedly, I flip through the pages again, checking inside the back cover, but I don’t see any more writing, and I sit there, excited and shocked. Are these Kaleb’s words?

I jerk my head to the bookshelf, the mountain of texts strewn about, stacked in the shelves, and overflowing. Jumping out of bed, I rush over, picking up a book. Any book.

Drawings of a cabin line the flyleaf at the beginning of the book, and I flip to the back, my heart about stopping when I see more handwriting.

Deep. I always want to be there. I hate it here. I want to be there. In the valley, where the river creeps and the wind rushes me. Surrounded by the creaks. It smells like deep. Tastes like deep. I want the world to be smaller.

I hate it here.

I barely notice the tears spilling as I pull books from the shelves, frantically searching for more.

He doesn’t read the books. He’s writing in them.

After sifting through a few empty ones, I find another with scribbles and markings carved into the paper so deep, it’s like he sliced the page with his pen.

Fuck, he writes.

FUCK.

And more scribbles, violent and dark as if the page is hemorrhaging ink. When did he write this? What had happened?

I open another text.

Saw her smile today. I like having a girl around.

I read it five more times, searching for more on the pages, but there’s nothing else. No dates. Is he talking about me or…?

You only yell at me now, he writes in another. I know it’s my fault. I know I can’t speak. I can. I just can’t. I… I’m not here. This is all I have and all I am. I can’t. I’m not here.

I notice the bookmark he’d placed there. I flip it over and see a picture of Jake with the boys. Noah can’t be more than five as he sits on a dirt bike, his dad behind him.

Kaleb is around six, his hair much longer as he stands off to the side, staring off. He’s always somewhere else.

I dig more books from the shelf, finding one with scratched-out marks over most of the writing, but I can still read it.

Mr. Robson asked us what we wanted to be today. I had so many answers.

Was Robson a teacher?

I want to be outside, he goes on. I want to be in a tree. I want to be wet. I want to be on the forest floor as the rain hits the leaves above. I like that sound.

I want to be warm. I want to hold something. I want to talk to my dad. I want to be tired, so I can sleep more, and I want to walk.

I want to be in love. I want to be safe.

I want to be over.

I want things in my head to be gone.

But then all of that is scribbled over, leaving one simple line.

I want to be everything she sees.

I stare at the handwriting. She? I shake my head, more to myself. There’s no dates on any of these? Nothing is filed in a discernible order. Some things are printed in block letters, others in cursive. Some of the cursive is third grade, some comes from a man. There’re years of musings on these flyleafs, and he hid them here, because he knew no one would open these old, tattered books.

He writes everything he couldn’t say.

You knew me a long time ago. You know you don’t know me now. Trying to teach me signing, like I can’t talk. I stay silent because I want you to leave me alone. Signing won’t help.

I grab another book, separating the ones I already read in a pile.

Saw some wolves take down a doe today. I should’ve shot the fawn. It won’t last the winter without her. It’s out there fucking starving now. I should’ve fucking…

I’ll find it tomorrow and shoot it.

Noah doesn’t say anything, does he? When I always need the windows down in the car, even in the winter, because it’s so hard to breathe. I like Noah. He lets me be. He lets everyone be and doesn’t need to understand everything. He doesn’t have questions all the time. He can just let it be.

I dry my eyes and wet my dry lips, snatching up another book. Noah knows why he needs the windows down in the car.

Saw her smile again today. She turned her face toward the sky and closed her eyes. I kind of get it. Like I don’t need to fucking talk all the time, she doesn’t need to open her eyes to see the peak. She likes it here. I can tell by her smile when she doesn’t know anyone sees her. Needles prick my throat and my vision blurs again. She always exhales when she does that, like she’s been holding her breath.

That’s me. I know he’s talking about me.

Found candy in the trash and kale on my pizza. She’s fucking weird.

I laugh through my tears.

God, she feels good. She looks like she’d be pudding in your fist. Soft. Too soft. It was so good, though. Those seconds on the car that she let me bury my face in her body. Her skin is like water. I want her smell in my bed. And in my hair. And never far away from me.

I envision him up here all those nights alone. Scribbling away in the books. All those nights wasted. Maybe he wrote this before he saw me come out of his father’s room. We both could’ve done things so much differently.