If You Love Me

38

d e a n

I NEVER THOUGHT THAT there would be something romantic in fighting for someone and winning them until I had lost her and wormed my way back into her arms. I never knew that there would be a certain romance in having someone you love forgive you and want you all over again.

A small part of me wonders if I had loved Avery from the very beginning and that if the love had just manifested and grew until I was no longer able to contain it to myself. Until I no longer wanted to contain it to myself.

I had expected Avery to just be a girl that I talked down from a ledge one night and have that be it. I didn't expect to feel the way I did for her, to love for her like I do, and to find every bit of romance in everything that we did together.

I have never been in love before, never having wanting or feeling the need to be until Avery. I had told myself at a young age that I would graduate school, possibly meet a girl that I met on the street or in some café, fall in love, and get married. I thought I would say the words I love you before I truly felt them and understood what it meant to be in love.

With Avery, everything was backwards.

I had known what love was with her before I even established that it was love myself.

I knew that I wanted Avery in every way that she wanted to give herself to me. That I wanted her brain, her heart, her smile, and every other part of her body that she wanted me to see. I knew that I just wanted her and whatever came with it.

I knew that I wanted to love her aloud.

My parents' relationship is pure, real, and utterly terrifying. They followed certain steps before being together. With Avery and I, it felt like we were working backwards and forwards and then backwards again. We started off seeing a part of each other that we wanted to hide, we ran from it, accepted it, shied away from it again, and came back together even stronger.

I can only hope that we stay in this stage forever; the stage of togetherness and being in love.

Avery has done many things for me. She has made me confident, made me happy, and made me hers.

Her making me hers is my favourite thing in the world to be.

Avery had to leave early for class to hand in a paper and I found myself heading towards the bookstore just beside the coffee shop we stopped at this morning and stayed in it she was almost late.

An older man with thin grey hair that leaves the top of his head bald sits in a maroon sweater-vest behind the counter. His head shoots up as the wind pulls the door shut behind me. He sends me a small smile over the book in his hand, his eyes peeking over the glasses that sit far down on his nose.

"Hello," he greets me with a timid smile. "It's a cold one out there isn't?"

I don't miss the way that his eyes fall to my hair which I'm sure is standing on its end and drop down to the thick sweater that I have wrapped around my body.

"It is," I agree. "It's nice and warm in here."

He smiles widens. "Looking for anything in particular?"

I look away from him and out at the bookstore around us. Rows line us from either side and despite the small nature of the store, seem like they go on for miles. I'm sure that it would take a map to find one's way out of here or any book on a reading list, yet I find myself glimpsing down every aisle hoping that the one that I'm looking for will fall out for me to see.

For as long as I have known Avery, I have known that this is her favourite book. She's never without it, all keeping it in the depths of her bag, underneath her mattress, or her eyes on the pages that were ripping at the seams. She lets me linger around all the other books on her shelf but this one in particular, she guards with her life.

I want to be able to understand her love for it, to be able to talk about it for hours with her.

She once told me that reading is her escape and I want to escape with her.

"Yes and no," I say, bringing my attention back to the man that sits before me. "My girlfriend has this book that she loves, barely let's go of it enough for me to see the title. I was thinking of seeing what the hype is about."

He lets out a hearty laugh. "Reminds me of my Rosie."

He sets the book down and rounds the counter, revealing the pale brown dress pants that he is wearing and black loafers. "Anything you can remember from the cover?"

"It was lightly coloured with a swing set on it I believe," I recall. "Oh, and there were a few y's in the title."

"Ah," he nods and begins to head down one of the rows on the left and I follow behind him. "I know exactly which one you're on about."

The aisle is neat and tidy, all of the books packed away with not a single one out of place. We reach the end of the row before he pauses and takes a book of the shelf. He turns around and hands it to me.

The Children of Yesterday by Jude Emersyn.

This it is. And he must think so too based on my reaction.

"Thank you..." I trail off and hold out my hand for him to take.

He grasps and shakes it steadily. "Paul."

"Dean."

He releases our hands and gestures to the books all around us. "Feel free to roam around. I will be up front if you need anything else."

He walks off and plops back down into his spot behind the counter and takes up his book like he never left it.

I continue to walk throughout the bookstore, going through each and every row, spotting some of the books that Avery already has on the shelves.

I know without a doubt that Avery would love it here, in this quiet bookstore that was warm and smelled like wood and coffee, with an old man that clearly shared her same love for reading.

I make a mental note to bring her here sometime soon as I walk back towards where Paul sits behind the front counter.

Once he spots me, he stands up and takes the book of my hand. He scans the book, telling me total and taking the money that I hand him. He hands me my change and I don't miss the glint in his eyes when I place all of it in the tip jar just next to the cash register.

He places the book into a brown paper sleeve and hands it to me alongside my receipt.

I take it with a smile. "Have a good day, Paul."

"Same to you."

I turn around and head towards the door, pausing when his voice pulls me back.

"Let me know what you think when you finish it." He calls out.

I look over my shoulder to find him sitting back on the stool, the book back in his hands, and his eyes scanning the pages.

It is only then that I realize he is reading the same book that sits in the bag in my hands.

"Will do." I smile.