Did you know that you get this little furrow in your brow while you read and I can always tell if something good or bad is happening because you bite your lip when it’s bad and lean forward toward the book like you could jump in and stop whatever’s happening? And you give these little sighs when you’re happy or disappointed or infatuated with a character, with me, and they’re all different, you know? And when you brush a curl back it’s always impatiently, like it’s someone interrupting your reading and you never fold the pages of the book and you wince when you accidentally rip a page as if you could feel it in your soul…

I know so much about you and all that I know, I love.

You know everything about my character, everything that this book of mine has to tell, but nothing about me. My favorite color is green. I don’t like cats. The character who plays the villain in the book is actually my best friend. I love you.

But this, this is all pointless. It’s not like you’ll ever hear me or read this or love me back. You will open the book again and the same words will be there like they always are, unable to be changed by me. And then you will finish my book and start another. You will think about me from time to time, about what happened once the book was over, maybe even re-read it, but then I will go onto your shelf and my feelings will be buried under a light layer of dust.

Ah, there. You are back and the book is slowly opening and my message to you will fade, the letters rearranging themselves back into their familiar words and sentences and paragraphs.

Except that they don’t. I watch as your eyes run over the words that I have just written and then do so again. Your lips tremble and your eyes fill with tears that gently fall onto my pages. I long to wipe away those tears and since I can’t, I do the next best thing. I grab two letters close to me and arrange them to my liking.

Hi.

Your laugh sounds almost like a sob but the smile that you give me is heartwarmingly bright.

“Hi.”