Alive And So Loved

Books And Plants

April 12th comes rolling around again, this time Louise has turned 22.

After years of two jobs and an apartment that was somehow worse than her mental health, Louise is happy.

She has a new apartment, one that isn't falling apart at the seams, she doesn't work two jobs anymore, she has time to go to the public library, she even splurged and bought herself plants for the new place.

And after the coffee shop playlist started adding Taylor Swift songs, she blew out the candles of a double stacked pancake while belting out, "I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22"

For the first time in a long time, Louise didn't hate the world. She thought that maybe she did deserve the smile on her face and the hanging plant next to the fridge.

But yes, the smile didn't fully meet her eyes because absolutely nobody was there to cheeer for her as she blew out the candles.

4 years and still absolutely no friends.

Yes, she had a few regulars at the coffee shop nowadays, but most of them were old men who were much more enamored by the newspaper than they were by Louise.

For a good 6 months of her life at 20, she was convinced that she had been put under an invisibility curse like the characters in the book she was reading then.

But alas, people did acknowledge her they just never tried to actually know her.

She sighed as the smoke from her birthday wishes rose into the air.

She considered grabbing a knife to cut the pancake, but who else was going to have it anyways? She opted for the fork and dug straight into the center of the dessert.

There was one thing that always made her day better.

"Screw it, it's my birthday" she said to herself as she walked out of the door.

The public library of Brighton, some may call it a dumpster house of rotting books, others like Louise, would call it heaven on Earth.

And yes, as much as she adored the books, what she really loved was the public computers.

After learning that people have a place to post videos talking about whatever they wanted to, Louise became obsessed.

Book reviews, travel vlogs, celebrity interviews, it was an entirely new world.

But all of that isn't what really got her hooked.

Louise discovered that she could download and launch a game called minecraft.

It was the laggiest version humanly possible due to the fact that the computers are definitely not new, but it was still perfect to her.

She could create a bunch of adorable houses, tame cats as a pet, and explore all over a randomly generated map.

So as soon as she made it inside, it was a dash for the back where all of the computers were.

Immediately she launched open the game and checked on her two cats who she thinks she might have an unhealthy obsession with.

Next she continued to finish building her new house.

Was she going to stay in the library until closing time, yes. And what about it? It's her birthday cut her some slack.

As her favorite part of building a house came up, decorating it, Louise finally realized how badly she had to use the bathroom.

She paused the game and went bolting to the bathroom.

The library's front doors opened.