The Reading List

Aleisha had opened the copy of Little Women, feeling Leilah’s eyes trained on the pages, as if a spell had been cast once more.
‘Wait,’ Leilah said. ‘What’s Little Women about then? I’ve heard of it.’
Aleisha turned to the back cover – she scanned the text. ‘Right, it’s about four sisters in New England … set in the 1860s,’ she continued to scan. ‘It’s about their attempts to help their family make more money, their friendship with a family living close by … and their later “love affairs”, apparently. There’s Meg, who dreams of being a lady; Jo … it says she’s based on the author herself – she wants to be a writer. Beth is quiet and delicate … she likes music, and then there’s Amy, she’s a “blonde beauty”. The pretty one.’ Aleisha kept running her eyes over the cover. Leilah was nodding, focused on the middle distance. ‘Ready?’ Aleisha asked.
‘Yes, go on.’

She turned over and stared straight up at the ceiling, willing sleep to overcome her. Suddenly her phone on Aidan’s bedside table started to buzz: Kyle. Of course. She’d see him later for her shift at the library, anyway, so she turned it face down. But her eye was drawn to Aidan’s stack of books again.
There it was. How had she missed it? Nestled between the crime books, the Martina Coles, there it was.
The Time Traveler’s Wife.
She thought of her copy, Mr P’s copy, resting beside her bed – forgotten and ignored.
Her heart caught in her throat. She pictured Mr P, telling her about this book, about how it had helped him. ‘The books show us the world; they don’t hide it.’ She imagined Aidan, sitting in his same spot, reading it. Had she even seen him read it? How recently had he read it?

She wanted to be away from this world, a world that felt completely alien and yet unforgivably unchanged too.
She picked up the copy of The Time Traveler’s Wife she’d carried up the stairs, wanting to escape, wanting to soothe Leilah. But what good were books now? The characters she’d loved in them were fake, they’d never be able to fix anything. They’d never live beyond the page. But the person she’d loved who had existed in the real world, who’d fought for her, who’d encouraged her, who had given up so much for her – he was now gone.