acbajet.

*from katie paul’s facebook.

I was 9 years old when my mother handed me The Lovers. The book didn’t actually have a title, the cover and first few pages were torn away from years of use, misuse and hours of reading, but my mother just called it The Lovers, and that’s how I always remembered it. I was a book-hungry fiend back then, devouring any kind of tomes I could understand, so I was fascinated by a book that was in such disarray. I knew I wanted to read it the moment it rested comfortably in my hands. What I didn’t know was that that book would consume me for the next few months and influence my love life from then on.
The book was the generic story of two young people named Charlotte and Jackson, who, surprisingly, fell irrevocably in love with each other, vowing to be with each other until they left the Earth. The next years of their life were filled with dramatic stories, tragic break-ups, magical make-ups and the world’s worst luck. However, although the first 200 pages were dramatic and comical, the last hundred pages of the book took a serious turn. Jackson was forced to go off to war, despite Charlotte’s pleading for him to stay. One year turned to two, which turned to ten, and Charlotte stayed at home, waiting patently as age wrapped her body, her beauty lessening every year.
Eventually, she meets a man who recognizes her last name and informs her that Jackson settled in the country he fought and already started a family. Charlotte, broken at the news of her lover’s abandonment, retires to her home, where she becomes an old woman, saving and glorifying any evidence of him in her house. She began punishing herself for not being a good enough wife for him, for not having a better hold of him while she had him. Everyday was pain for her, every moment she lived, she wished and breathed him.
She grew to be 80 years old, her skin wrinkled and dotted with age spots, the only remnants of her beauty was in her eyes, her heart and her memories. She died in her house, clutching a letter he had written to her as a soldier, his last letter and words of love and adoration to her.
I had read this book many times, its dog-eared pages creaking in pain every time I turned them, but I couldn’t stop. Being young at the time, I copied half the book into my journal, trying to save the words before the book became destroyed altogether. I always cried at the end, but being that little, I couldn’t grasp the full sense of meaning the book held. I just knew that the woman ended up alone, and died that way. Only last week did I find that book in tatters in an unpacked box in the garage.
I picked it up, rereading the words I adored as a child. Only this time, I saw the true theme of this book. I saw young, foolish commitment in their vows, poor promises of their marriage and realization of the future in his abandonment. I saw her heart and soul break when she learned of her loss, and I saw the major flaw in her naïve character. She never moved on, never saw anything past ‘would haves’ with Jackson. When I finished the last page of that story, it finally tore out. The binding finally broke, and all the pages fell apart, spilling across the floor at my feet. I stared, my heart breaking at the destruction of my favorite book, but picked them up. I did what Charlotte couldn’t do, I picked up the pieces of the book and threw them away. With my thoughts still full of The Lovers, I still obediently opened my AP Biology book and began to study.
I’ve never forgotten about Charlotte and the lonely way she died, nor have I forgotten about Jackson and how happy he is with his new family. It was from this book I vowed never to be alone in my life, to always fill my life with laughter, friends and family.