To The Last Chapters

They all begin in mostly the same way.

 

The first couple chapters orient you, open the map in front of you and, if the book is good, slowly reveal the details of the terrain. They point you in the right direction and you have, after a while a good lay of the land.

 The author’s voice. The main character’s voice. The setting. An inkling that the trouble right now is just the beginning. Storm’s a-coming.

 

Fiction, biography, autobiography. Just about any narrative.

And then, you’re in, too deep to turn back, no choice but to keep going forward. Clearly, there is no way out and--holy shit, can you believe?--it just keeps getting worse. You are trying to will the main character to see what is so clear to you but is obviously lost on her. Or, you want him to hurry up and get through this, passed this, over to the other side.

Alice, don’t drink the potion in the bottle. Hamlet, your sister!! Daisy and Tom, this will never work.

You cannot put the book down. Even when you actually put the book down, leave it at your bedside table in the morning and go about your day, you are just passing time until you can pick it up again. You live a whole other life while you are filling out reports or sitting through meetings.

This part takes only a few days.

You know the moment, right. When you scan ahead to see how many pages and chapters you have left. The right side of the book is now significantly smaller than the left.

Wait. How can this happen? As much as you need to know, you aren’t ready to let go. You suspect the main character will leave her husband, but once she does, she will leave you too.

You slow down. Every sentence becomes precious and if, heaven forbid, you space out a little, you quickly turn back and read the whole paragraph again. Just to be sure. You set the book down between scenes and do a load of laundry. You call your dad. You make a very elaborate sandwich. Anything to stop it from ending and, at the same time, keep it going.

The last two chapters take as long as the first 12. Like any break-up, you know it has to happen, but all you can do in these last moments is think about the good times. You reminisce with the characters.

Remember when you first got to India and had to learn how to use the bus?

Remember that time you were making out with your first boyfriend in the backseat and the windows steamed?

Remember when you wanted to tell him the truth, you wanted to say no, but you couldn’t? It would have broken his heart. You didn’t know then, like you do now, it was broken long before he met you.