Love in Real Life

by Seth King

“Your Bookstalking series where you snap random people and broadcast what they’re reading – genius. And the décor? You’re like the Martha Stewart of decorating with books.” His voice sparkled darkly like stones at the bottom of a clear, cold stream. “And I think I might like you a little. Not a lot, because we just met and that would be totally weird, but definitely a little.”

  My face went so red, I hid it even from myself. “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know. You have nice eyes and you know how to talk about books and not all people can do that and you said the words ‘inadvertently sexual.’ …And is that bad that I said that? You sound like someone just backed over a kitten. And a fluffy one, not one of the old skinny ones.”

  “No. It’s not bad. Just…baffling.”

  “But you act like it’s bad.”

  I caught myself, then leaned back. “I didn’t…I didn’t realize I was doing that. Okay. I hear you. What are you reading right now?”

  We launched into the various books we were into. Soon I found that I disagreed with him on almost everything book-related. A novel I found to be overly long and detailed and overstuffed, he thought was interesting and insightful. A character I thought was shallow, he found to be refreshingly under-described. (Adjective overuse, according to George, was a crime punishable by death.) Maybe I was a negative asshole, or maybe he was just too optimistic – but soon I noticed I insulted almost everything I read. What did that say about me? Was I perhaps not quite as happy and normal as I’d always assumed? I didn’t really know if people were supposed to be happy. I just thought they were supposed to exist; survive, and if happiness happened, then great.

  We differed on romance novels in the biggest way. I’d never read a single one I enjoyed, but he seemed to be fascinated by them.

  “I just can’t handle them,” I said, even though they did make certain swoony images come into my mind. What I wouldn’t give to wake up next to his head of hair…

  “Come again?”

  “I don’t like them. I’m terrified of love,” I said in a small voice.

  “Why would anyone be afraid of falling in love? I mean, sure, I get being afraid of the aftermath, but…”

  “Why wouldn’t anyone be afraid of it, is the question.”

  “Hmph. You’re a weird one, Teddy. But so am I, so it’s cool.”

  “Says the guy who searched my phone number on Google Maps.”

  “Touché. But don’t say it wasn’t charming.”

  “Jury’s out. I’ll let you know some other time.”

  “Ah! So there will be another time!”

  “I mean, if you’re lucky…”

  I didn’t want to reveal too much and be emotionally slutty, so I said I had to go soon, even though I actually had nothing at all to do, and it was hard to part with him. Really hard.

  We said our goodbyes and I hung up. I shocked myself by how I empty I felt after the line went dead.

  The next day was a blur, one word careening through my head: GeorgeGeorgeGeorge. I wondered what his bedroom looked like; I wondered how he treated his mother. Or maybe he didn’t have a mother at all? No, we couldn’t have had that much in common…

  Miraculously, he called the next night at the same exact time. We talked a bit, and then he said he had to go walk his dog – but that he would call the next night. I tried not to display how annoyed I was growing with his little games, or whatever they were I don’t know how successful I was.

  Still, I was sweaty and nervous and weirdly happy the whole next day, and I was supremely let down when he never came into the store. But sure enough, he called that night. This time our banter came much easier, and we talked for two hours. I searched articles he’d written for the school paper and called him out for obnoxious/problematic things he’d said, and he scrolled through my Tumblr and mentioned books he’d also read. On the third day, though, he sounded different – excited, somehow.

  After the usual chitchat, we got into a heated discussion about John Green, and then I started hearing some strange background noises. “Are you driving?” I asked. He didn’t say anything. “Um, hello? Where are you going?”

  “Uh, nope. I’m going nowhere. Why?”

  “You’re totally driving.”

  “Whatever. By the way, I’m sorry I haven’t come to the bookstore lately.” I saw a flash in the driveway. “But I’m not that sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “…Because I couldn’t wait to talk to you in person again, and I’m kind of already here?”

  George Charles

  The day I met Teddy at the Bookworm, I searched him on every single social platform like a total stalker. I felt my face get cold and fluttery as I scanned his Facebook photos and then his Instagram profile. Sure enough, there were no red flags: he was funny and normal and low-key and loved books with a passion that could only be matched by me. (And that was sexy, in a way that was strange and shocking. Sure, I met bookworms all the time, but they were always a bit older than me, and never as sizzling hot as Teddy.) He even wrote about books on Tumblr and Instagram, and his analysis was deep and fascinating and…well, made him even sexier. His brain was as hot as he was. Hookups were great, but to a bookworm like me, intellectual conversation lasted forever. And the whole sexy thing he had going on wasn’t bad, either…and his lips, well, they were enticing, too…

  But soon I closed my Macbook. I’d told myself I wouldn’t go down this road, the road that led to dating.

  But then again, Teddy was funny. That was proven every time I stalked his profiles and his blog. He was funny and cute and looked at me like he didn’t expect anything from me. He was nice (mostly), and that was really rare. And books – I’d never met someone who seemed to love books as much as I did. It was like he’d put my love for books into words, and not even I could do that.

  But there was a problem, one I didn’t know if I could hide from him. I was still miles shy of the finish line of the biggest battle of my life: my fight against severe Social Anxiety Disorder.

  ~

  Look, I knew people got nervous. Some people even got very nervous. But my anxiety issues turned my whole life on its side.

  Being in public for me used to be like taking the drain out of a bathtub and watching the water run out: it just took all the life out of me. Most people could handle being around other people. Some people even enjoyed it. For me, it was horrifying. I second-guessed every single thing I said, I reconsidered every little thing I did; in my head I was always sure I was being judged and ridiculed and laughed at. My stomach would turn, my mind would spin. In my head I was always doing the wrong thing, saying the inappropriate word, always one wrong turn away from making the entire room stop and stare, forks midway to mouths. It was so draining, too: sometimes I was so physically drained by the stress associated with human contact, I would fall asleep the second I returned to my safe-haven of my bedroom.

  I found excuses to hide from the world, I told myself there were a million reasons to avoid this party or skip that get-together. And soon I forgot how to be around people in general. I remember days when my mom would drag me to church and I would literally cower outside the door of the youth room, palms sweating, stomach roiling, absolutely sure that nobody would want me around and nobody would let me sit next to them. And it was just a room full of empty chairs! I knew the fear was irrational, I just didn’t know how to stop it.

  It wasn’t until fairly recently that we finally named, and zeroed in on, the real reason for my issues: I was mentally ill. After my diagnosis it was like the clouds parted on a drizzly January day. I had a problem to focus on; an actual monster in my mind to master. I bounced from psychiatrist to psychiatrist and finally found one who seemed to understand me – her name was Joy, ironically, and she was direct and slightly bitchy in a way I appreciated. She gave me some tools that were slowly starting to change my life. One of them was a pill called Zylex, which made me feel like I was constantly at sixty percent – I wasn’t tumbling into des
pair, but I wasn’t ecstatic, either. I was kind of at a constant state of near-happiness, like how you feel on a comfortable Sunday evening when nothing’s really going on but nothing’s exactly wrong, either. But it was certainly better than the despair…

  The medicine and the therapy had helped, I couldn’t deny that. Like the Teddy thing – that never could’ve happened a year ago. I never would’ve approached him like that. But something told me I’d made the right decision. He was so similar to me, it almost wasn’t like talking to anyone else at all…

  With every passing day, every text with him, every new Snapchat from his account, I was feeling more alive, more awake, more…myself. The self that had existed before adolescence, at least. He was okay with what I was, and that was amazing and rare. But my mom still wasn’t totally okay with my bookworm-ness in particular. She said I used books to escape and avoid my life and my issues, just as a drug addict used crack or heroin to drown out their problems and run from the world. Instead of dealing with my problems or my fear of adulthood or anything else, I’d start a new novel and dive into fantasy to avoid my life. Books were my only friends, according to my mom, but Teddy felt the same way I did. All this had led me to his front door, like the crazy person I was.

  But what now, now that I’d crazily showed up at his house? How could I keep from fucking this up, just like I did with everything else in my life?

  The lights came on, and I heard someone waking down the stairs. No matter what would happen, I had no more time to guess. Here he was, in flesh and blood. And I was nervous. So nervous that I wanted to go home and escape into my Kindle and run from all this already. But then again, here was life, large and thrilling and all-encompassing. And I was going to have to face it instead of running from it again.

  No more books: it was time to fall in love with something in real life. Or least go down in flames trying…

  Teddy Martin

  I threw on some clothes as my stomach boiled. The actual idea of doing things and leaving my house was foreign and scary and somewhat exhausting. To me, real life was something that passed me by while I happily buried myself in books. Why couldn’t George and I just lounge around and do nothing, like I normally did when I was alone? Why did he have to be Romeo?

  I met him in the front yard, in front of the Bookworm’s porch. I had to do a double-take to make sure this was happening. He was hot and sexy and he was standing in my rinky-dink driveway – okay. This was a thing that was happening. It made me feel immediately slouchy and gross.

  “Okay, weirdo, what’s the deal?”

  He looked up at me, beautiful and smart and somehow dangerous in the moonlight. “Um. Can I ask you something first?”

  “Sure?”

  “We need to talk about those shorts. Why are you wearing them?”

  I pawed at myself. “They’re not even that short. People who show up unannounced at inappropriate hours can’t make outfit requests. And what’s the problem, anyway? Are you trying to tell me what to wear?”

  He turned away a little. “No, I’m just saying that you shouldn’t wear that if you want me to behave. I was trying to be good and behave myself tonight...”

  I breathed. I know I should’ve been offended, but nobody had ever said anything like that to me before. I took a step up the stairs to add some distance. “Well, thank you.”

  “Sure. You’re hot,” he said plainly. “That’s part of why I really came here, to tell you the truth.”

  “What?”

  “You are. I’m allowed to say that. You’re allowed to recoil in horror, sure, as you are right now, but I’m still allowed to say it.”

  “Hey, I’m not recoiling.”

  “You definitely were, and still are. Don’t call the cops, please, though. I’m not quite as crazy as I look.”

  My mouth wouldn’t form words – I didn’t know what to tell him. He’d said all this in a totally straightforward, matter-of-fact way, not creepily or anything. But still…

  “I also told you I had some trouble being out in crowds,” he said, “so I thought this could be a better alternative – a sort of date night in the dark. Or whatever you want to call it. I’m not great at the whole dating thing, I guess…or really, socializing in general…”

  “Stop. Oh, and speaking of that, why don’t we have any mutual friends?” I asked him. “You said you’re from Jacksonville Beach, too.”

  “Oh, I was homeschooled.”

  “Gotcha. Religious parents?”

  He looked away. “Not exactly. My problems with school were more…my own.”

  An ominous silence hung over us. We walked in the quiet, then I looked over to say something – but he was staring at me like I was on fire.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Your eyes,” he whispered. “They’re just…they’re like stories, or something. I can see it now that you’re in the light.”

  “Come again?”

  He breathed. “Well, it’s not really about you, personally. But I met an author once who said he couldn’t even look at his own books after he published them, and I asked him why. He said that to everyone else it was just a book, a glued-together stack of pages. But to him, it was pain in real life. It was something he’d poured his brain and soul into. The average person didn’t know that one chapter was inspired by the last time he’d ever seen his mother, and that one scene was a word-for-word recount of the last time he’d ever spoken to the one that got away, etcetera. When he sees his books he doesn’t see actual books, he sees everything that went into them – that’s what your eyes are like right now. It’s almost like they’re shiny little novels or something.”

  I couldn’t say anything to that, so I just started walking instead. What could I say? Sure, he was a little forward, maybe even manic, but he made me feel so appreciated I didn’t know how to process it.

  We just wandered for a while, in a semi-awkward silence. And as we walked, a strange thought crossed my mind. Have you ever watched popcorn cook in your microwave and felt that weird sort of wavy energy undulate across your skin? He was like a microwave. I could just feel him, tangibly, physically. It was the weirdest thing. His eyes were sparkly and his teeth where white and his laugh was a little too high to be taken seriously and God, what was I doing? Why did I care?

  “Was that too much?” he asked soon. I giggled.

  “I mean, honestly, maybe. But it’s fine. It was beautiful, actually. Is this what you’re always like?”

  “God,” he sort of laughed. “I guess. I don’t know how to play hard-to-get. If I like someone, I like them – I write poems about them and buy things for them and talk about them to everyone I know. I burn brightly, just like I crash harder than most. I run hot. But I’m working on it, I swear.”

  I tried to look sympathetic, but to be honest, it did sound like it would be somewhat annoying, as sexy as he was. I was more comfortable with wild snakes than I was with my emotions, and that all sounded somewhat smothering. (As adorable as he was, obviously.)

  “What about you?” he asked. “So, the Bookworm – that’s your job? Your life?”

  “Kind of, in a way. A crazy consuming job that makes me frequently want to punch trees, but yep. I’m actually a blogger as well, as pretentious as that sounds. Talking to a screen is much more comfortable than talking to a human for me. But it’s called Books in Real Life. It all ties into the store. I have a Tumblr and an Instagram where I talk about different books we’re carrying, and show new features at the store, and just update the followers on my life in general.”

  “And here I had no idea I was talking to a famous kid! I’ve seen your posts around on Instagram, I swear I have, I just never knew there was an actual person behind it. A person who is hot.”

  “Ha, stop – I’m not famous.” Or hot, really. “I just have a really tiny following that I’m really close with. I know I’m shy in person, but I’m, like, different when I’m talking to my subscribers – they’re the only people in the world who
love books as much as I do. Anyway, it’s all just one giant ad for the Bookworm. If we create a new feature, I post pictures of it. If we get a big shipment of a new book, I read it and post a review. It’s like a constant interactive commercial.”

  “And it works,” he said, motioning at our very large parking lot. “Do you want to pursue this forever?”

  “I mean, ideally I just want to somehow get paid to read books. That’s all I want. Forever. So that’s why I stayed behind after graduation to work with my dad. I’m just going to community college in the fall.”

  “Correction,” he said. “The Bookworm was all you wanted…until you met me.”

  “What?”

  “I’m kidding. I’m glad we’re hanging out, though. You seem like a nice person, and that is important. You also look great in black.”

  I rolled my eyes in the darkness. “Okay, you can stop now.”

  “Stop?”

  “I know guys like you – or I’ve read about them, at least – and I know what the deal is,” I said as casually as I could. “Just stop. Deal?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to. I enjoy being nice to you. You make me feel like someone I didn’t before. Not for a while, at least.”

  What a strange guy, I thought to myself with a smile. Strange in a good way, but still strange. His every word was beautiful, luminous in a dark old town. As much as I wanted to deflect him, I also wanted to stretch the moment and make it last forever, soak up every last piece of wisdom I could. “I can’t relate to all this emoting,” I said softly. “I have a missing chip when it comes to people.”

  “You’re telling me!” he laughed. “Books are easy. Humans are the real mysteries to me. That’s why I read psychology books, I think. Who are we? Why are we this way? What in the hell are we doing? That’s what I want to know.” He glanced away. I sensed we were getting too personal, so I stretched my arms. He was leering at me again.