Emma's Lovebook

The cold rain felt like icicles pelting her face as she walked home to the sound of blaring car horns and an illuminated New York City against the night sky. “I hate it here,” she muttered to herself as she made her way through the noisy streets. She was on her way home from a double shift at the bar and was unbearably exhausted per usual. Exhausted was a character trait for Emma at this point; physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. Working double shifts at the bar and sharing a tiny, rundown apartment with three roommates who are essentially strangers at just twenty-years-old will do that to a girl. But this was what she had to do to survive, and that’s all Emma has ever known: survival.

Emma’s brisk stride shifted into a saunter as she fell into deep thought about her life and the events that led her here, from the day she was found in the woods alone as a baby to now. She thought about never knowing who she belonged to, never having family, and moving through life alone; bouncing from foster home to foster home until she was old enough to go out on her own. And now here she was at twenty, doing everything she could to stay off the streets and put food on the table; doing everything she could to just survive.

Emma was so lost in thought she no longer felt the rain and didn’t even realize she was completely drenched at this point. So lost in thought that she didn’t even see the object in her path that found its way under her foot, causing her to slip and fall onto the sidewalk. “Sonovab*tch!” Emma shouted directly after hitting the pavement. “This place is a dump!” she said as she sat up and angrily grabbed the object that caused her fall; a little black notebook. But as she raised her hand to throw it out of spite, something about the notebook captivated her causing Emma to lower her hand and examine the black leather-bound notebook that intercepted her path home. She ran her hand against its round corners and old cover, wet and slippery from the rain, before taking a peak inside to find beautiful cursive writing in its pages. Then, without knowing why, she tucked the notebook into her bag before getting up and continuing her walk home.

Finally making it to her apartment, Emma peeled off her soaked clothes and fell back onto her bed. After staring at the cracked ceiling for a few moments, she sat up and looked over at her bag with curiosity before reaching over the bed to grab it off the floor and retrieve the notebook inside. Again, Emma ran her hands across the notebook’s leather cover and rounded corners before opening it up to the first page. “To My Darling,” the first page read. “I love you. Forever and always. In this world and the next. Let the words on this page last as long as our love and beyond.” A heart was drawn in the middle of the page followed by the words “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart- William Wordsworth” at the very bottom. “How beautiful,” Emma whispered aloud as she turned the page.

Emma spent the next few hours consumed by the contents of the notebook, which she discovered to contain what appeared to be a series of love letters between two lovers. Each pair of pages was filled with monthly communication between the lovers, as noted by the dates written in the top right corner of the pages. Each left page was filled with the words of a woman who always signed off as “-Elle;” her handwriting a beautiful, elegant cursive. Each corresponding right page that sat adjacent to Elle’s was filled with the words of a man who signed off as “-J,” his handwriting a strong and less perfect, messy cursive. And so Emma read page by page, engulfed in the intricate love notes between two passionate souls.

After reading into the early hours of the morning, Emma had learned a few things. The first was that Elle and J had the kind of love that everyone dreamed of; the kind you only see in movies and read about in books. An unbreakable, unconditional, passionate, raw, and genuine love. The second thing Emma learned was that some tragic event had torn these two lovers apart and kept them apart for many years, as they’d frequently speak of how much they missed and longed for one another. And like clockwork, they’d write to each other on the first day of every month. The third thing that struck Emma was the frequent mention of something the two had “lost” which they often referred to as their “treasure.” Emma couldn’t figure out what this treasure was, but it was very apparent that the loss of it was something that had deeply affected and saddened them.

As Emma read through to the last of the pages, she was left with more questions than answers about the life these two may have lived. What caused them to separate? And how were they communicating to one another through the same notebook if they weren’t together? Yes, they were communicating monthly but their corresponding notes always had the same dates on them; the first day of every month. Surely there wasn’t enough time to mail the notebook back and forth to one another. Maybe they were closer to each other than Emma had thought? But then why couldn’t they just see each other? And what was this treasure they had lost?

Emma lay there confused. After reading close to 300 pages, she was yearning for more. And even worse, the last set of pages seemed to have absolutely no closure. The lovers just abruptly stopped writing, leaving the following pages blank and unfinished. “What happened?” she thought. It bothered Emma not to know, considering the strong connection she formed to its authors after reading of their love. She envied and admired the love between them; a love she herself had never known. Perhaps they were reunited and had no further use for the notebook, she told herself. A nice, happy ending that satisfied her yearning. And with that, Emma dozed off as the sun began to rise and creep into the openings of her broken blinds.

Weeks passed and Emma continued on; surviving. The notebook found a permanent home on her beat up wooden desk and every so often Emma would pick it up and flip it open to a random page to cheer herself up on a bad day; a reminder to herself that genuine love did actually exist in the world. She nicknamed it the Lovebook. Everything continued on normally otherwise, until one day something very unusual happened.

It was one of Emma’s bad days and so she reached for the Lovebook for comfort. Flipping to the last page, Emma dropped the book to the ground in shock. There were two more pages filled with writing! Two new pages! Emma looked at the book again and again and thought maybe she missed those pages before. Or could she be losing her mind? But as she looked at the dates on the new pages, she noticed they were date marked just a week ago- “March 1, 2021.”

The new words written were brief and simple, unlike on previous pages.

“My darling, it seems we’ve found a way to our treasure,” Elle wrote.

“It seems we have,” replied J. “This is what we’ve been waiting for all our lives. It’s finally happening my love.”

Emma spent the rest of the night in disbelief. She’s clearly losing it right? This can’t be happening. Maybe those doubles at the bar are just taking their toll. It’s just the effects of being overtired, she thought. So Emma forced herself to sleep.

The next day Emma looked at those new pages in the notebook to make sure they were still there, and they were. And everyday for the next few weeks she opened that notebook when she woke up every morning and before she went to sleep every night, trying to make sense of it all.

Then, the night before the first day of the month of April came and Emma laid the notebook open on her desk to the next two blank pages. “This is crazy,” she thought. But still, she had to do it; she just had to. Emma sat on her bed and stared at the notebook until she fell asleep, and when she woke up the next day to two blank pages, she let out a sigh of relief. But that sigh of relief was quickly met with panic when something unbelievable began to happen as Emma started to walk away from her desk. The notebook began to fill itself with writing, appearing right before her eyes! The first word she saw made her gasp in terror.

“Emma,” it read. “We know you can see this. Please help us retrieve our treasure.”

This was followed by a detailed set of directions to an abandoned building in the city in which the walls hid a safe containing $20,000. Still in shock, Emma proceeded to follow these directions and locate the safe with the money. Making her way back to her apartment with a duffle bag full of life-changing money, Emma moved on autopilot in complete disbelief she listened to a talking notebook that led her to twenty grand. “Is this even f*cking real?” she thought. “Am I even real? Am I ok?”

Back in her room, Emma sat on her bed with the notebook in her lap. Her hands shook as she slowly moved them to open it, hesitating several times. Finally, Emma found the courage to open the Lovebook, and what it said shook her to her core.

“Emma, we’ve finally found our treasure. YOU. We’ve wondered about you ever since that that day we had to leave you in the woods, and for 19 years we prayed we’d find you.”

The rest detailed how Elle and J, who were married, went on a hike with their one-year-old daughter one sunny day and lost their lives trying to save hers. Crossing paths with a family of bears, the couple hid their daughter in some leaves and led the bears away into the river; but never made it back. With them was a little black notebook that J had given Elle as a gift, and somehow their souls were bound to the notebook after their untimely deaths. As years passed, the two discovered that their souls were in separate realms, only able to communicate with each other through the notebook; which had made its way through many hands over the years. They also came to realize that their strong desire to know that their only daughter was alive and well was the unfinished business that had kept their souls bound to the notebook and physical world. But finally, their treasure was found.

“We’ve waited for this day for forever. We love you with all of our hearts. So much so, that we could not leave this world without saying goodbye. It’s not much but please take our life savings found in the wall and build a life for yourself. Do what makes you happy. Flourish. Find Love. And Live. Our dearest Emma, fill your LIFE with the breathings of your heart” –Elle & J, Mom & Dad <3

Emma fell to the ground in tears, shaking uncontrollably. It was all too much to process. Her dead parents talking to her through a notebook? $20,000? Finally finding her family? But what was more unbelievable than anything was the word “Live.” To be able to live and not merely survive was something Emma could not fathom, until now.