"Falling apart, and all that I'm asking,
Is it a crime, am I overreacting."
~ Alexz Johnson, 'Skin' ~
***
There is something entirely magical to the way words can bring feelings, impressions, and images into being. A simple sentence can make shivers dance up and down your spine. It can make you shake in anticipation, shiver with fear or need, and it can create emotions you didn't even know existed until those words gave them a form.
Salem always loved to read.
Her eyes loved and craved that familiar dance along the black letters printed on the pages. Those letters become words. Words become sentences. Sentences become stories.
And stories are an escape.
A safe haven.
That's what books were to her when she grew up.
She used to crawl into her bed at night, burrowing herself under the soft blanket, the little flashlight hidden in her pillowcase clutched into her hand, a heavy book resting on her thighs, and then she would just... Escape.
It was her way to run away when it was impossible to close the front door behind her and never look back.
Instead, she opened another door, to another kind of world. For a few hours - or more likely the whole night because she didn't know how to put it down until it was over - she could forget everything and bask in the warmth of this new world.
A world where she could run and dream.
One where there was no pain, no sore muscles, no tear tracks painted on her cheeks. There, Salem could fly, she could hope, she could feel without fear, and sometimes she could even believe that there was more out there for her.
But reading also offered a bittersweet shelter because no matter how beautiful the journey those letters took her on was, Salem always hated the last two words.
Oh, it was always hard to say goodbye to characters you had grown attached to, but the real crushing ending was not the sudden death you didn't expect of a character you loved.
It wasn't even the burning thirst for more when the book felt incomplete and unfinished. Nor was it the frustration when the main character fell in love and ultimately ended with a controlling, abusive, supernatural, forever-teenager boy that made her change everything about herself, plastering the idea of a Happily Ever After on top of what was basically an abusive relationship.
No, the real crushing ending to Salem, no matter what, was always those last two words.
« The End.»
It meant closing the book.
It meant closing the door.
It meant ripping through the blissful feeling of security and crashing back down to reality on the hard mattress that pressed against every bruise. It meant holding her breath for an entirely different kind of trepidation, waiting to see if the monster was awake.
Yes, Salem loves to read.
This, however, she does not like reading.
YOU ARE READING
HIS SALVATION
Werewolf- #1 Book in the KINGS series - * * * Two warm hands slip over her shoulders, calloused fingertips ghost over the bone at the nape of her neck, making a shiver run down her spine. Tender hands gather her hair and push the damp lock over her right sh...
