Credence

I smile and sit up, shaking my head. He’s such a surprise. He reads.

Of course, his shelves to my right are filled with books, but I kind of thought they might’ve been stored here, and he was too lazy to move them over the years.

Sitting cross-legged, I pull the book into my lap and fan through it, the smell of the old paper, tinged yellow, wafting over me.

I open it to the middle, hearing the spine crack.

I almost laugh. I thought so.

Although aged, it’s not broken-in. He’s not reading this.

So why is it in his bed?

I let the pages fan closed but spot something right as the book goes to close. I catch it, opening up the cover again and bringing it closer to read the black writing.

It’s funny how women come to me so easily now, it reads. They used to say that I was stupid in school.

Stupid.

Stoooopid.

Stoopid.

I narrow my eyes, making out the scratchy handwriting inside the cover.

I am stoopid.

But they sure like to fuck me.

A lump lodges in my throat, and my breathing turns shallow.

Kaleb?

Hurriedly, I flip through the pages again, checking inside the back cover, but I don’t see any more writing, and I sit there, excited and shocked. Are these Kaleb’s words?

I jerk my head to the bookshelf, the mountain of texts strewn about, stacked in the shelves, and overflowing. Jumping out of bed, I rush over, picking up a book. Any book.

Drawings of a cabin line the flyleaf at the beginning of the book, and I flip to the back, my heart about stopping when I see more handwriting.

Deep. I always want to be there. I hate it here. I want to be there. In the valley, where the river creeps and the wind rushes me. Surrounded by the creaks. It smells like deep. Tastes like deep. I want the world to be smaller.

I hate it here.

I barely notice the tears spilling as I

pull books from the shelves, frantically searching for more.

He doesn’t read the books. He’s writing in them.

After sifting through a few empty ones, I find another with scribbles and markings carved into the paper so deep, it’s like he sliced the page with his pen.

Fuck, he writes.

FUCK.

And more scribbles, violent and dark as if the page is hemorrhaging ink. When did he write this? What had happened?

I open another text.