Her True Love

She read Shakespeare hungrily, and with surprisingly perfect comprehension. Her emotions shone brightly on her face, whether they were of delight, wonder, concern, or anything else that her "William" could make her feel. She was completely drawn in by him, hanging on his every word, wide-eyed and enchanted. Watching her read, I envied Shakespeare. He could enrapture her every time, without even trying. A man who had been dead for 500 years could hold her attention for hours on end, when others struggled for 20 minutes. His words echoed in her mind endlessly, when she forgot things I had told her minutes before. This is when I realized that Shakespeare was, indeed, a genius--not because I'd ever read a line of Hamlet in my life, but because he could tame her wild spirit with the strokes of a long-stilled quill. He spoke to her soul like no one else, not even I, could. I wondered if she would ever love anyone in the world like she loved Shakespeare, but I knew that because of him, part of her heart would always go back to Stratford upon Avon to be where his work still breathed and his spirit touched every blade of grass. She would never wholly belong to me, but to be honest, I'd never wanted that anyway.