Hide Me In Your Thoughts

Smell Of Old Paper

Song - Nike by Asa

…/…

“Okay, I think I’ve stayed in the water for too long, my skin is starting to look all wrinkly and dry,” I announced to all of them. I hold the rails by the left area of the swimming pool and try to pull myself up when I feel someone’s arms around my stomach and before I know it, my back is touching the water again with full force.

When I raise my head out of the water, I scream “Carl!” out of frustration. I see him at the other extreme smiling and laughing with Joyce and Mace.

Carl has always been the quiet one out of all of us, but lowkey, he’s the most troublesome. Carl bumped into Joyce and me when we were walking down the hallway in 9th grade and accidentally spilled cold coffee all over Joyce.

He spent all year apologizing. Mace and I got used to his presence after five months. There was this phase where he’d send Joyce gifts, daily, just to make her smile and forgive him totally. Of course, everything he was doing was working.

Joyce was softening and he noticed it, so he closed the whole forgiveness thing with a bang and got her the shoe she wanted the most on her birthday, as a gift. It was weird seeing her hug him that day, but we were just happy for Carl mostly. Ever since, he has stayed with the group. Not having him around became weird and we’d get concerned on days he wouldn’t show up to school.

“Lily, I’m sorry,” he shouted in response. “So annoying,” I said under my breath. “Mace, I’m starting the book without you,” I yelled when I got to the chair by the pool. He immediately responded with, “you dare not!”. “Okay, watch me!”

I changed into a big white shirt and shorts, then headed to the reading room. It wouldn’t be a lie that images of me reading the book had taken residence in my brain throughout the day. The room isn’t small, nor is it big. It’s the right size for cozy, with just one shelf, a table, a chair, a reading lamp, and a sofa.

The concept of one shelf is to keep Mace and me on our toes. Of course, there’s the actual library upstairs where there are other books, but only the good ones get to the special room. There’s nothing like the smell of paper, especially old paper, and the beautiful sound it makes when you flip a page.

…/…

“Should I be concerned that you haven’t started reading the book?” Mace asks as he walks into the room, his body still wet and his hair dripping. “Nope, I was waiting for you,” I reply, my eyes scanning his body and then looking at the words on the eighty-fifth page of a random book before he could catch me staring.

“Good,” he says. Then, he walks toward me with the book in his hand. He lays down on the sofa, his legs reaching where my body is, close to the edge of the sofa. I assumed the familiar position without him mentioning a word. Resting my back on his chest, my head reached the top of his chest, close to his neck.

I could smell the cologne he must have just sprayed. The petrichor smell filled my nostrils and made me close my eyes, already imagining that we were somewhere we weren’t. He put his hand that held the book around me, placing it on my stomach, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

This wasn’t new for us. We devised a way to read together when we were little. Learned how to scan each word and create each scene at the same time. One before the other, not a second earlier.

One would be able to hear a pin drop in the room if it ever happened. That’s how quiet the room is. The only sound that can be heard from miles away is the sound of pages flipping at intervals. I couldn’t even hear Joyce and Carl anymore. I was that invested in the book, and they know better than to disturb us when we’re reading.

…/…

“You do know that we have the potential to finish this book today,” Mace says, breaking the silence with his voice. I could feel his chest vibrating as he said those words and that jolted me out of my world to listen to him.

“Yeah, of course,” I replied, a bit absentmindedly. A moment of silence passes again, then he says, “We really shouldn’t, Lily. We'll be bored tomorrow”, “And the day after that,” I added. He closes the book and I stare into space thinking of how it’d be nice to be a fictional character and then I voice my opinion.

“Yeah, true, but the downside would be that you’d be forgotten”. Of course, his point makes total sense, but I still say, “I never forget characters I like. I never forget characters at all”. “Of course, you don’t. You’re part of the minority, Lily. Most people don’t even remember the names of the books they’ve read”.

I laughed at the truth in what he said. “Let’s go get dinner, I might actually pass out if I don’t eat now,” I said to him, peeling myself off his skin. I wasn’t expecting the cold to envelop me the way it did. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around myself. Then, Mace stood up and put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me to his side.

We walk in that way to the kitchen to find Joyce and Carl already seated around the kitchen table, eating pasta. “Is my mum back?” Mace asks. “Nope, but Carl made pasta and the sauce is incredible”. Joyce whispers the last part for obvious reasons, to not inflate Carl’s ego, but then, it is no news that Carl is the best chef of us all.

“You should’ve called us. I don’t like cold pasta,” I whine. “That’s why there’s a microwave Lily plus I’m not trying to get myself killed or anything,” Carl replies. The last part was definitely exaggerated. I hate being disturbed when I’m reading, but I’d never go to the extent of killing a person. I don’t want to go to jail. Not yet.

“Hey, are you staying at my place today?” I asked Joyce. “Is Harry going to be around?”. I roll my eyes and think of all the reasons I’d want her to stay with me, including the great confession I want to tell her tonight.

So, I replied, “Yeah, he’ll be home”. “Then, I’m definitely staying over”. “Some days, I feel like you love him more than me. Like, I’m your number two or something,” I lamented. “Oh, I’m her number two. You’re probably her number four,” Carl says.

I smack his back and say, “No one cares about you”. “Or you,” I say to Mace too. He smiled at me, knowingly. “What?” I dragged out when I noticed that he was still staring at me. He looks away from me, then looks at me again, saying, “Well, I know that you love me, don’t worry, I love you too”. At that moment, I could not define what I felt, but yeah, it was definitely a shock to my heart.

…/…

Just as we’re about to leave Mace’s, his mum walks in. “Oh! Hi Sweeties”. We all greet her as she walks by us. “Mum, I’m just going to drop Lily at her place but Carl is staying over”. “Oh okay, that’s fine,” she replies. “I made dinner,” Carl says as we all file out. “Thanks, darling,” I heard Mace’s mum say faintly.

When we get to my house, I say, “I still don’t know why you have to drop me, I can drive” as I collect my things. “Bye Mace, Bye Carl,” I say, then peck the two of them on their cheeks respectively. Joyce does the same but with hugs and then we walk into the house.

Inside the house, I could see Joyce’s face clearly because of the lighting. “When did you even get the chance to do make-up?”I asked, my voice a bit high-pitched due to the shock. She smiles at me and says, “It's a secret”, then adds, “So, where do you think he’d be? Maybe painting or listening to music in his room”.

I stared at her for five seconds and said, “He’s not around. He’s not coming home today”. She says nothing but I can hear her thoughts loud and clear, and trust me, they aren’t things that should be said out loud. Before she can think of ways to actualize her plan of killing me, I say, “But I have this confession to make and I really need you to be here. I have to tell you something, Joyce”.

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll just put killing you on hold. What do you want to tell me?”.

“I think I like someone”.