THE SAPPHIC TALES

FALLING FOR AUTUMN

I joined the local girls bookclub a couple of years ago.

I was thirteen I think.
An innocent child who liked watching a certain girl for fun.

Just for fun, that's what I had been telling myself.

Until one day ... I caught myself writing ' Kiss Amber's lips' in my bucket list.

And why would someone like me want to kiss that girl's lips?

I'll leave it at that.

So the bookclub met once every month after reading a chosen book.
At twenty years of age, I still hadn't stopped attending.

You read and then at the meet up, you talk about it.
More like rant, if you ask me.

I wasn't a bookworm. I wasn't a huge fan of novels or anything of that sort and meeting once a month just to talk about all that bullshit inked down in there by someone I didn't even know was a total waste of time to me.

You must be wondering why I joined the damn bookclub in the first place if I wasn't at all interested in books.

Well, ... It was because of her.

I wanted to see her everyday, watch everything she does and listen to her angelic voice.

It was the only place I ever saw her speak so freely and it mesmerized me how smitten she was with books.

Just when everybody was done with their mocha, I could already see her eyes glittering with excitement just to spill out all her thoughts and opinions she had about the book.
She was dying and I couldn't wait.

I bet I looked the same, looking at her. Dying to listen to whatever her mind could give out.
It was all I could get to cope with my awkward crush on her.
Just the sound of her voice.

Even a little.
Even if all it takes is for me to join a bookclub and attend there for the rest of my life.

Anything just to hear her voice and be in the same room with her.

I wonder if she ever noticed me, I was the weird one who seemed to have zero comment on the book.
I didn't even read any of them.

This time they were reading Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

I was just there to listen, like every other regular day.

But I guess today wasn't any other regular day because before I could notice, Amber had taken the sit right next to me.

I felt my breath being taken away by her fine cologne.

I was a frozen statue for the next three hours. I couldn't speak, I couldn't move, I couldn't think.
Well, until it was her turn to speak ...

" ... I think Adichie depicted the best of a real African girl life ... I fell in love with her attachment to reality and the flow of her prose was so magnificently impeccable I was speechless.

I could totally see myself as a black girl with a religious abusive father in Nigeria. The appearance of a priest as a young girl's first love interest immersed me even more. I think I got a thing for forbidden love. "

A loud cackle came out from the audience at that last sentence.

" But out of all", she continued, smiling. " My favorite character was Jaja"

Somebody clapped her hands, making Amber giggle that she wasn't the only one who connected with that character.

" Why?", a certain girl cut in. " Why Jaja?"