I spend so much time reading because I find it difficult to be around other people. Don't get me wrong. I actually love meeting new people and making friends; but I just can't seem to keep people. I'm the person that they first become friends with and tolerate until they can make friends with people that are less weird. I'm not whining or complaining but it sucks to know that you're the person people choose when they have no choice. That's the difference between my relationship with books and people. When I invite a book into my life it takes me into its world, engulfs me and gives me an invigorating and new experience, with people experience I often have is feeling left out in their new groups of friends. 

Sometimes I spend the night at the library. It's really easy when you spend so much time there that you know all the nooks and crannies. Spending entire nights in a place full of books is like spending a night smoking pot for me. The euphoria I feel when I flip a page smell the musty smell of the old books in the back that haven't been touched in months or years yet are so full of knowledge and wisdom. Then there's the crispy fresh smell of of new white pages when the latest releases come in and it's like fresh bread from an oven. I can get high on these smells. When I'm rich enough I'll move to an isolated cottage in the snowy mountains of Canada with a huge, private library and a secret nook where only my lover would find me. 

Dear God, could someone ever love me for me? I broke up with Lewis a few weeks ago because I realized that I was falling into his "dick-sand"; I was losing myself all over again and trying to be his ideal girlfriend. Actually he never truly loved me for me but whatever idea of me he had. People tell me that I'm so pretty and that I would be gorgeous if I dressed up more and acted differently, but why can't I just be myself? I want to have someone in my life who knows me for me and loves me just the same. Who supports my interests and goals and I for them. To spend sixty-plus years together and at the end of it all, to death do us part be able to say  "it was all worth it".

The librarian is coming and I hold my breathe. He looks around a little bit and for a moment I think that he sees me, but if he does he ignores it and walks away. After half an hour I hear the doors lock and I'm alone. Sweet peace and solitude. I stand up from my corner and take out a packet of chips from my bag. Food and books, the perfect night. I wander around the bookshelves looking for something I haven't read yet. I think that I read at least ten books a week now. I'm becoming a bit like a hermit now. Perhaps I should hang out with people a little more, actually maybe I should go online more and start a blog about books and food. I would call it "The Literary Foodie". Has a nice ring to it. Perhaps publishing my interests would be the key to finding my soulmate. 

I think that's a funny idea. Holding the key to someone's heart. What closed the heart in the first place? Why was it closed off? Why is it that as we grow older we instantly lock off ourselves from other people? When other people are as lonely as we are? This is ironic coming from a near self-proclaimed hermit. I know first-hand the pain of not being able to fit in and be accepted, but I can't help but wonder if the other people don't also feel the same way? Do they play a part to fit in or am I the only one unable to act in ways that are acceptable. 

I flip through another page in the novel I'm holding and musty smell of moths and mold fill my nose. My kind of high. I inhale it deeply and get return to reality for a second.  Perhaps I have the wrong idea. Perhaps I don't hold the key to my soulmate's heart. I'm a girl aren't I? I am probably the keyhole and the reason I can't find love is because love is supposed to find me...which doesn't make sense in a way since the fact that I'm looking for love means that I should be out in the open; an easy target for love. Maybe I think too much and feel too little, or maybe I feel too much and think too little...

Am I even reading? The smell of the book is so nice. I take a moment to breathe it in again. I hear someone stifle a laugh behind me and turn around. A guy around my age in sweatpants, flippers and a hoodie stands looking at me bemused. Even in the dim lights he's so obviously gay. 

"I breath them in too. They kind of make me high," he says. I bite my life wondering if old-smelling books can actually cause a drug-induced hallucination. But he doesn't seem threatening and for some reason I like him. Obviously he's sleeping over at the library like I am. 

"Do you think that I am the key-holder or the keyhole?" I ask him closing my book and taking a bit of a chip.

"Definitely a key-holder," He says without pause and smiles a sort of lopsided grin. I offer him my chips.

"Did you bring snacks?" I ask. He shrugs his shoulders. "You can share mine then." I smiles at me a bit uncertainly and takes the chips. I take out chocolate, sandwiches, pies and drinks from my bag and place it on a table nearby. 

"Nothing goes better with books than food," I tell him. I breaks into a laugh. 

"You're definitely my kind of person," he tells me and sits down. He's holding 'People of the Book' by Geraldine Brooks. One of my favorite novels. That was the first time that I smelt the moths and mold scent of a book that has been in storage too long at the back of an antique shop. He's definitely my kind of person as well. 

"So key-holder, do you have a name?" he asks. I nod.

"Tana"