Books

It's a cloudy Friday afternoon. A bus gray with pollution pauses at
the corner of 16th and JFK Boulevard. I step off, my backpack slung
over my bony shoulders, weighing down my thin frame. I would run if it
weren't for this burden. So I walk, observing the sturdy oak trees that
line the streets, listening to the screeching of cars and the demented
laughter of the men in the nearby pub. I turn the corner of 15th and a
2-family house with goldenrod siding enters my field of vision. I climb
the steps and unlock two doors.

Once I toss my backpack on the floor, I'm off. I rush to my room and
shut the door behind me. I flop onto my bed, close my eyes and sigh. I
can taste it: freedom. No homework, no bratty teenagers, no one
tripping me in the hallway, just silence and serenity. I've survived
six hours of torture, and this is my reward. I have an entire weekend
to spend with my friends.

Some people say I don't have friends, but they're wrong. I have loads.
472, to be exact. They live in my room, arranged in alphabetical order
on cherry wood shelves. My friends are books. Hardcover and paperback,
thick and thin, literary and genre. All kinds, all shapes, all sizes.
They're my best friends in the world. And, quite possibly, my only
friends. When I open one, it's bliss. I can get lost in world of magic,
love, anything my heart desires. I can dive in and I don't have to come
up for air until I want to. In fact, I can stay there forever if I
like. I'll develop gills and breathe words, swim in chapters, live in
novels.

Psychologists tell me it isn't normal to prefer books to people. I beg
to differ. They tell me this because they've never been to my high
school. They haven't seen the mediocre selection I have. No people I've
met can compete with my books. Am I supposed to choose snobby Lila
Albavar over Romeo &; Juliet? Or obnoxious Jake Richardson over
Harry Potter? It's not that I don't wish I could prefer people. I wish
that more than anything in the world. Why, oh why can't I meet someone
who can be as good a friend to me as my books, or the characters that
dwell within them? Why can't I find a boy who can make me as happy as
they can?

Finishing a book is like returning from a Hawaiian vacation. The place
you've been is usually so much better, so much more interesting and
exciting than your normal life that you don't want to leave. Going from
the basement of a Paris opera house back to a 2-bedroom house in New
Jersey is enough to make anyone miserable, especially knowing you have
to go back to school on Monday.

Teenagers just don't understand me. I know this sounds odd because I am
a teenager, but I don't feel like one. Once, when I was with the
closest things to human friends that I have, I tried to explain the
underlying metaphor in To Kill a Mockingbird. I attempted to tell them
that "killing a mockingbird" is a metaphor for harming an innocent
person, since Scout and Jem are told it's a sin to shoot a mockingbird
because they never bother anybody. I told them this was exemplified in,
among other things, Tom Robinson's arrest. I was met with blank stares.
None of them understood a word I was saying.

In an attempt to find some people I shared interests with, I attended a
writer's convention. I didn't fit in there, either. Adults kept asking
me, "Are you here with a parent?" "Are you lost?" When I did get into a
conversation with someone, the person talked down to me. If he or she
used a big word, they would stop to explain what it meant. Fed up, I
left, resigning myself to the fact that I didn't belong anywhere. I was
doomed to be alone all my life, an oddball wherever I went. That's why
the books are my only friends.

The best thing about my books is that unless they fall on my head, they
can't hurt me. They can't tell me I'm ugly. They'll never call me dork
and say they don't want to be my friend anymore, which is more than I
can say for some people. They'll always be there for me. They'll never
change, never move away, and never make me cry. We'll never get into
fights and yell at each other. They'll never hate me. They'll always be
on my shelf, waiting patiently for me to read them again. They're
perfect. I love them.

There's just one problem: the books can't love me back.