Books mentioned:

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

This is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

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Chapter I

I am a sunflower. 

Fairytales are bullpoop. 

I don't cuss. My grandparents have raised me well that even saying bad words is considered taboo for me. I don't curse now not because of them, but because I got used to it. I never tried saying those filthy words in my whole life. 

Okay, I lied. 

See, it's easy to lie. And it's even easier when you had to lie for the sake of yourself. It's like the cherry on top of the cake- the perfect alibi to use whenever you're cornered. 

"My dear child, I'm just going to the grocery store to buy you your favorite flavor of ice cream. Mom will be back. "

That's what she told me on that day. I remember the look on her face. Her eyes twinkled, pleading me to let go of her coat and to let her go towards the freedom she craved so much she choose to abandon her only child. I remember how her hands trembled and the way her lips twitch from time to time as if she had something to tell me. 

Yet she never followed her promise. What a naive person I was. I remember myself smiling as I watch her walk away, in spite of the snot forming in my nose and the wound in my knee. I got it because I tripped trying to follow her earlier. I must be dumb back then. She's just going to the grocery when she's holding two suitcases? Fine, suit yourself then. 

She never came back. Mom never came back. That was the last time I saw her, and the first time I cursed. 

Mom was the queen, my father the king. I was their princess and the heir to the throne. Someday, I'm going to meet my prince charming and we're going to rule the kingdom forever. Yada. Yada. And then they lived happily ever after. Close the book. 

Bullpoop. 

Oops, my tongue slipped. 

Either way, I cursed the entire universe that day. I cursed the moon and why it has to go up the sky so early. I cursed the sun because it also left me like Mom. I cursed the stars for still smiling at me. So rude. I cursed our ugly little house and why it can't make my mother stay. I cursed my grandparents for letting her leave. I cursed myself for being myself. 

Bullpoop. Bullpoop. Bullpoop. Bullpoop. 

I kept on repeating the words until my throat got dry and my eyes heavy. I wondered why my grandparents never scolded me for saying the same foul words over and over again. I guess it was because bullpoop is not a curse word. I didn't exactly say the right thing, just exchanged it with something safer. 

Or maybe because they, too, have nothing else to say. Grandpa just sat near the window that night while grandma sang me to sleep. 

But I don't care. I'm not going to go berserk and waste my life for such trivial thing. Sure, I lost both my parents at a young age of ten, but I have my awesome grandparents to support me. 

It still whenever the topic gets bring up whether in school or when I'm simply talking to myself. I don't know what they're talking about. My memories with my parents are becoming blurry. Every time the clock moves, a piece of my memory gets lost into oblivion. I can't even recall the smell of my mother nor the voice of my father. What I see now when I close my eyes is their faces, and I'm afraid time will come where I'd forget about it too. 

I sighed. 

I stopped skimming through the wide array of books when I felt a strange feeling as if someone was looking at me. Slowly but surely, I turned my head to see who's stalking me. Within seconds, I had an eye-to-eye with Mrs. Seaweeds. 

"Silence in the library, " she warned me. 

I nodded. It was just a sigh but Mrs. Seaweeds was able to hear it. Is she some kind of a superhero? I giggle at the thought. Nah, Mrs. Seaweeds isn't qualified to be one. She'll scare people away. She'd prefer being the villain. 

I don't like Mrs. Seaweeds. We have a love-hate relationship. She always bring up the topic of being no parents just to jab at me. Luckily she owns the library or else I could have snickered at her openly. She can't kick me out either, because I'm her one and only regular customer. 

I passed the Fairytale section and headed for Fiction. I closed my eyes as my point finger trace the spine of the books. Books comfort me. Ever since Mom left, it has become my shoulder to lean on, although books do not have shoulders and it is not advisable to lean on them. It will be scary if one day the books transform themselves just to have shoulders. Yikes. 

I open my eyes as I notice an unfamiliar texture at the tip of my finger. I have never seen the book before. The cover was pastel blue and drawn to look like sticky notes. All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. It's a new book. 

"I'd like to borrow this, " I said, showing the book to Mrs. Seaweeds. 

Seaweeds is not really her real name. I just called her that because her real name, Nori, translates to seaweeds in English. She also smells like the sea. She sat in the library with her back crouched. Thick eyeglasses cover her wrinkled eyes and her hair that is always styled in a tight bun is slowly turning to white. I rarely see her smile.

"When will you stop reading books here? " she asked. 

"When are you going to close your library? "

She wasn't able to find an answer. I close my lip to further irritate her. 

"See, you don't know the answer either. "

"You never answer my questions. "

"It's because you kept on asking me stupid questions. "

Both of us sighed the same time. We always have this silly arguments whenever I go to her desk to give her my library card. 

Mrs. Seaweeds took a quick glance at the book. "You have a bad taste, " she commented. 

"I'm fine with tragic endings. "

"Here, " Mrs. Seaweeds gave me my library card and two books. 

I gave her a smile. We may quarrel a lot, we still have soft spots for each other. 

Mrs. Seaweeds is the mother of one of my two bestfriends, Eumji. I couldn't even believe it the first time I learned about it. Eumji is the human representation of a fluff ball, forever precious and could never kill a bug in her entire life. To think that she has a scary mother like Mrs. Seaweeds is a bit of a stretch. 

But it's real. They really are family. I confirmed this when I deliberately asked for Eumji's birth certificate. I refused to believe it until I had concrete evidence. Great was my horror when I saw Mrs. Seaweeds' name on the paper. I was constantly whining about Mrs. Seaweeds back then, right in front of her daughter! I almost fainted. 

Mrs. Seaweeds was also the first person who spoke to me about my parents. Grandma and grandpa never touched the matter. It was like they pretended it never happened. 

"She's not coming back, " the words coming out of the red-colored lips of Mrs. Seaweeds were harsh, but truthful. 

A week after Mom left, I visited the library alone for the first time. Come to think of it, I did a lot of first times when Mom left. I was endlessly trying to skim the section of the fairytale books but wasn't able to find one that looked as appealing as the ones my mother brought home. Mrs. Seaweeds towered over me, her hands on her sides and her overly-drawn eyebrows close to becoming a line. 

"It's time for the library to close, " she reminded me. "If you can't pick one within five minutes I'm going to kick you out. "

I flashed Mrs. Seaweeds- she was still Mrs. Nori back then- my most convincing puppy eye