More than Words

To be with Anna Lee

I met her mother first when she’d picked me up at the bookstore and bought me for her bookworm daughter. She was 12 at the time with big glasses, chubby cheeks, and a button nose that was more often then not, hidden behind a book. She’d squealed when her mother handed her my story. She’d caressed me carefully and examined me with curious green doe eyes. I thought at the time how strange it was that a preteen would want to read a book such as myself. My story was for the few that could understand the intelligence my pages held. Later I learned how very intelligent this little girl was.

I grew up with her. Some days, weeks, months, I was left on the shelf with others that had lost her interest. But she would come back, dust my cover off and read me again and again and again. 

I came to know her very well by her grunts of frustration, silent tears, the oohs and awe’s, and her giggles and smirks that she showed only in private when it was just me and her curled up on her bed, a sofa, or at the library. In public she showed little to no emotion. It was pretty scary sometimes and she would do such a good job I would think she was a robot if it wasn’t for our private hours. Sometimes she got bullied in school for being so robotic. The other kids shoved her around to hear a squeal or a flash of emotion. She kept strong though, my little girl. At least, until she came home to cry under her sheets.

More than anything I wanted to be real. To be more than paper, ink, words, and leather. To be real, to be human. To be with Anna Lee.