The Books They Gave Me

Coelho.

A few years ago, I read Paulo Coelho’s By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. I convinced my then boyfriend to read it because I myself was convinced that the story bore a ghostly resemblance to our own love story — a story that unbeknownst to either of us at the time, was approaching a grave ending. I made notes in the margins, highlighting passages I knew he would love because they were beautifully wrought, and those I knew he would contemplate because they touched upon the spiritual and all of our questions. He did, in fact, love them.

Tonight, in need of inspiration, I had the urge to pick up the book and read through my notes.

I couldn’t find the book.

And then I remembered that he never returned my copy. Like a flash, a post-breakup conversation resurfaced in my memory in which he told me that after our breakup he carried the book with him and reread the story and all of my scribbles in an attempt to cling onto some piece of me when we were not speaking.

As I sat on my knees, recollecting all of this, it occurred to me that sharing books is an intimate act in a relationship. If sharing music is considered foreplay — which it is to me anyway — then sharing books is definitely going all the way. With music, you merely glimpse your infatuation’s tastes. Still, it’s easy to tune out a song you don’t particularly care for when you would rather listen to him talk or relish the comfort of his arms. But with books, you pay attention. You’re reading words; you’re consuming ideas and themes that move him; you’re connecting intellectually. Maybe even spiritually.

I could be overthinking this. But I can’t help feel a sense of loss knowing that my book, marked by my handwriting — ideas and phrases that spoke to me, underlined, circled, highlighted — is floating in the world. Just like a man I once loved.