I settled into it. There was a divide right down the middle, starting from the base of her neck and leading down towards the indentations at the bottom of her spine. She slept this way, on her stomach with her arms reaching towards the head of the bed, and I hoped that she wouldn’t always sleep this way. It was a dangerous way to sleep. I noticed that her skin had grown darker recently, maybe from the open window, maybe from the spring sun, and maybe from the fact that she always shirtlessly slept. I had seen her back more than a few times, and I adored it, and knew that for the remainder of our time together, she would only show me her back, never reveal those secrets that were stored on the ventral side of her body. It is always much easier to stride away, walking towards something much grander, something that could tan her stomach. I was already sitting up, perpendicular to her with my back supported against the wall, my legs bent, and my arms wrapped around my knees. Watching the sun move the shadows on the wall, it always felt like centuries passed while I waited for her to open her eyes and start her morning routine. Dart her head up and make eye contact, one. Throw head back down against pillow, two. Finally sit up, back turned towards me, three. Scoot off to the bathroom, close and lock door, four.

That was usually the cue. When the door locked, I would go to her one of her bookcases and being rearranging. She wasn’t like me. I liked to keep things in order, alphabetize each novel based on the author’s last name, but her mind was hectic and she didn’t have patience for such things. I would spend those ten minutes she was hiding away in the bathroom taking the books from one shelf and rearranging it with another, but it was difficult work because she had five full-length bookcases all filled up with novels she had collected over the years. Twice every weekend, I would spend a total of twenty minutes doing this, maybe being able to rearrange enough to organize one shelf. Some books were strange and had blank covers, so I’d place them on the nameless shelf I mentally created. Sometimes I’d wonder if she even read those books, or if maybe they were all gifts or maybe stolen from some local library. The process was calming and becoming habitual, as if I was writing my way into her very own novel.

One morning a few months after I had first begun the ritual, she caught me, busted open the door and spotted me with four books in my arms, my eyes wide with suspense, her eyes rounded with confusion.

“What are you doing?” she smirked.

“I was just…organizing your books.”

“How are you doing that?”

“By the author’s name.”

“How orderly of you. I didn’t ask you to do that.”

One of the books fell out of my hands and smashed against the floor, the pages opening from the breeze coming from the window.

“Why did you decide to do that?”

“I just thought, you..er..it…your shelves could use some organizing.”

She came closer to me, her eyes fully focused and her eyebrows curved in a thinking manner, and she slapped the books from my hands and watched them drop on the ground on top of the first. The breeze was as strong as ever, throwing her hair from left to right, and she pointed towards the fallen books. I looked at them, in all of their mess, and finally saw that there was nothing to them. She picked another one off the shelf, opened it in front of me, and said, “Pretty cool huh?”

I took another off the shelf and another and another and realized that all them were completely blank, just these white pages with these covers of famous or obscure titles, all colored on the outsides like the average book, but completely wordless on the inside. The lie was funny to her. My organization of unmarked, lifeless books was even funnier.

“You want one? I have plenty,” she smiled again and started picking up the books from the floor, throwing them back on the shelf in a flat pile.

I sighed deeply, and took in another breath, and shook my head at her thinking Who needs these books? These books that can’t be read. Can’t be read. Can’t be read. Then my eyes followed her as she went under the covers.