A Book Nerd's Guide to Falling in Love

Chapter 1: Drugs were Overrated

Like everyone else needing their daily fix, I was an addict. The human brain was wired to work that way. It remembered anything essential and pleasurable, increasing the desire to do it again. Take another hit.

Eating sugar. Scrolling. Counting likes. Making out.

And mine?

Sniffing.

I inhaled, pressing my nose to the fore-edge of the book in my hands.

I was addicted to the smell—sweet vanilla, cotton, and glue. I couldn't completely describe it, but it was so familiar I could tell it was printed ink on paper with only one whiff. Like a drug causing chemical reactions in my brain and producing dopamine, it encouraged me to close my eyes, tune out the world, and escape into a short moment of paradise.

"Elsy, have you relapsed?" the girl beside me said, jolting me from a subconscious trip down euphoria lane.

"What?" I turned from my locker and observed Charlotte King. Her brunette hair framed her round face and cascaded over her slender shoulders—one of the prettiest girls in our year.

"You're sniffing books in the hallway again. I thought summer had already rehabbed that out of you." Charlotte placed her hands on her hips and squinted her hazel eyes at me.

She was wrong. If anything, summer had rekindled my passion for reading books. It made me even more addicted to their scent. I spent most of my break reading novels, taking advantage of the time before school started again.

"Haha, very funny, Lotty." I tucked the book into my bag.

Looking at her, my mind snapped to a certain thought as it always had, wondering why we were still besties. We had been inseparable since the middle grade. But at some point, I thought Lotty would find a new clique because that was how it happened in the movies. A friend growing prettier and more popular than the other would destroy the relationship.

But not for Lotty and me. We survived the first two years and were now starting as juniors.

A month had passed since classes began. Everything settled into the recognizable High School of Littleton, New Hampshire. Cell phone junky teens—screen lights glaring on their cheeks—walked through the locker-lined halls in their baggy pants or loose-fitting jeans, the stay-at-home comfy medium that emerged from the lockdowns of the pandemic.

"Hey, Lotty!" Someone called from the hallway.

Lotty and I turned our heads at the same time, where two boys, Finn Johnson and David Martin, walked toward us.

"You're coming to my party on Saturday, right?" Finn, wearing a brown Harrington jacket, stopped in front of us and stared at Lotty.

"Yep," she answered. "I just need to buy you a gift."

I caught her tucking her hair behind her ear. It was an unmistakable expression of flirting, one I learned from romantic novels and not in real life. I averted my gaze as if I witnessed something private—a scene I should not have seen.

"Make sure it's a good one," Finn said. A smile reached his dark green eyes.

"Bruh, do I have to buy you a gift?" Dave asked, raking his fingers through his shaggy blond hair.

"Of course you do. It's a worldwide tradition to give presents to the birthday boy." Finn gestured at himself and grinned, revealing a deep dimple on his right cheek.

I pressed my lips together, annoyed at how entitled he sounded, though they were close enough to kid around like that. And it was true. Giving gifts to someone on their birthday was a universal rule, especially if you were invited to their party. For that, I was glad he hadn't invited me.