Chapter 12 - Emily

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Everyone has their own means of something that provides an escape.

Something that takes away all of your concerns, conflicts, and worries. Something that makes you lose such intent touch with your own reality, you feel like you're floating.

Sometimes, you completely forget what it's like to be you. You're so mentally far away from your life, you don't even feel like yourself as a real person. You're just drifting, flying, soaring; away from everything that you don't want to address and towards everything you'd rather be facing. You're pushed into a world where everything is okay and you wouldn't want to be anywhere else but there. So much so, that when the high dies and your reality slams back into you, you just want to go back to that dreamlike vision even before you've left.

Reading is my escape.

Nothing fulfills me more than losing myself in a world that isn't mine.

I love investing myself in words that'll take me away from my own life, only to be shoved into someone else's. A life where you know their every thought, emotion, and action. I love getting so caught up in a story, that every aspect of it becomes so lifelike and I forget it's a work of fiction to begin with. I love becoming so immersed in the characters that I feel like they're my friends. When they laugh, I laugh. When they cry, I cry. When they die, I lose a piece of myself as well. And all of this derived from a piece of paper and some ink. Reading is a magic of its own.

It becomes addicting. It's like taking your next hit or drink. You start to crave it the more you involve yourself with it. You need it to get by in life. It's the first thing you turn to when things go wrong, when you're in need of a fun time, or if you're just looking to relax. Suddenly, it's not just something you do. It's something you live. What starts off as a simple exploration becomes a habit. It becomes a lifestyle. You won't even remember what life before it was like and damn if you want to. It becomes all you know and there wouldn't be any going back if you try.

That's why I feel so exhilarated right now. Something about a bookstore, being surrounded by so many stories and worlds you're itching to read about, pushes my anticipation through the roof.

I take a deep breath, loving that new book smell. I walk down the aisles, one at a time, running my hands along the spine of each book as I pass it. I needed this. Needed to get away for some time. I hate when I don't get time to read or feel like I'm drifting away from it. My entire life feels like it needs adjusting if I'm not reading. So, naturally, I'm probably going to walk out of here with an armful of books and an empty bank account. I feel myself grinning. I'm not even sorry.

As of late, Jaxon seems to have become what reading is to me. Addicting. Exhilarating. Distracting. I always want to turn to him, ready to tell him about my good and bad days. I crave his presence, always anticipating the moments I get to be with him. I'm continuously thinking and fantasizing about him. He's consumed me entirely. It would seem he's very close to becoming my escape and that would be dangerous. How do you lose yourself in someone that always slips away?

I grab a book that catches my eye and settle down on the plush, carpeted floor of the bookstore. I lean back against one of the shelves, getting comfortable. When I open the book and begin reading the first line, I smile. It's just like coming home.

Hours later, when the book is finished and I feel myself pulling away from the adventure I just took place in, I rub my bleary eyes and stretch out the kinks in my muscle. Man, that was satisfying. Sometimes I'm convinced reading is more fulfilling than sex. Or maybe I've just had a horribly mediocre sex life. I bet Jaxon could-

Don't.

The trip to the bookstore was so that I wouldn't think about him. But of course, he's at the front of my mind the second I come crashing back to reality. Christ, I'm gonna have to buy an entire shelf to keep my mind occupied.

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