The Library of Borrowed Hearts

by Lucy Gilmore

Truth be told, a tour of the 760th Radar Base sounded about as fun as stabbing herself in the eye with her serrated grapefruit spoon, but she wasn’t about to say so.

lol

“This is where I tell you that a librarian should know better. If you aren’t aware of the power of a good piece of fiction by now, you never will be.”

Books were always trying to teach us that the power of love could overcome any hardship and that money didn’t buy happiness.

He’d forgotten how it felt. To hold a book in your hands and know that everything would turn out okay in the end, to lose yourself in someone else’s story… That was a joy he hadn’t allowed himself to indulge in for a very long time.

In many ways, books were more alive than most of the people he knew. They were living, breathing entities that changed each time you picked them up.

He likes knowing how close he is to the things that make life brighter, and he likes being a few steps away from happiness. He also likes not ever actually getting there. It’s okay, because I understand. I understand a lot more than anyone thinks. Because what happens if you reach the thing and you still aren’t happy? What happens if you try to do better, but no matter how much of yourself you put in, you’ll never be what the teachers and bosses and people in the grocery store want?

“Can we get a goat, Chloe, please?” Theo asked. “I want to name him the Great Goatsby. Jasper has been reading aloud to us at bedtime.”