The Upside of Falling

by Alex Light

enough. It was like, if love couldn’t exist in reality, at least it was alive in fiction.

Could love really make the world stop? Why did it make every female character feel alive? Wasn’t she alive before she met him? Or was she in some zombie-like, comatose state? How did love change that, and more importantly, why couldn’t I seem to get enough of this unrealistic crap?

“Why is he shirtless? And why are her boobs bigger than her head?”

“I’m guessing you want to be the prince?” “Only if you’re the princess.”

I needed the happy ending right now. I read and read and read until reality faded into fiction.

“Reading helps me. It’s like I’m in another world when I read. And all the problems in my life don’t exist anymore. It helps.” Then,

I wondered what that was like, to have enough money to feel secure. Not having to worry about the price of tuition, student loans, or how much textbooks were going to cost. Having the ability to go to whatever school you wanted to.

“Read to me” was all he said. “I don’t think you’ll like this book.” It was romantic. Like, embarrassingly so. “Please, Becca.”

People leave, Brett. It’s not our fault for not giving them a reason to stay. It’s their fault for not finding one.

“I can’t believe I have a crush on a girl with such horrible ice cream taste.”

Relationship virgin here. Even books didn’t prepare me for this.

The worst part was the amount of time I wasted reading these things and losing myself in fantasies that were never going to happen. And at the beginning, that was the point. To read something so completely outrageous and find comfort in the fact that the fictional love and heartbreak would never happen to me. But it wasn’t even worth it because it did happen to me. I was left standing here with all these books and a broken heart from a boy I never really even dated.

Why doesn’t anyone talk about this? How is this legal? They’re feeding vulnerable readers lies about love and life and we’re buying into it like mindless consumers.”

“It means,” Brett said, wrapping his pinky around mine, “that I like you. A lot. And that I was a jerk to ever doubt that. A lot of things have been changing in my life, Becca. In this whole mess, you’re the only constant. You’re the one that always comes back.”

“Can we give this one more shot?” he said. “No more pretending. No more space. No more people coming between us. One last try. I won’t mess it up this time.”

Life didn’t have to fit into a four-sided box that was neat and tidy. It was okay if the box had three sides or the fourth one was hanging on with duct tape. It was okay if the corners were dented and if there was a big red FRAGILE sticker on top.

“No,” I answered. “Believe me, there are a million things I’d rather do with you than read this book, but we kind of just did that, so . . . come here. You always tell me about your books; now give one of mine a try.”

“Look, an image is there in front of you. Right? You stare at it but then you can look away and it’s gone,” she said. “Words aren’t like that. They build an entire world around you. It’s not something you look at, it’s something you’re inside. That makes it scarier.”

It was kind of pathetic what being so close to her did to me.

Then I kissed her, and it felt like I was sliding off the edge of the world.

“Because you go somewhere else when you read. I want to go there with you.”