Feels Book Novels & Stories

she said, already shoving a cart toward me. I fell into the familiar rhythm—open box, shelve books, restock displays. My body remembered how to do this even if my mind was frayed. But then the impressions started slipping in. Not voices. Not words. Just… emotions. Annoyance from the guy complaining loudly on his phone. Melancholy from the older woman browsing poetry. Stress rolling off a teenager scanning the exam guidebooks. Each feeling brushed against my awareness like dust on skin. “Not yours,” I whispered. “Let go.”

The words written there looked rushed, almost messy, like whoever wrote them was confused and scared. “Why do I feel different from humans?” “Why do I crave blood?” “Why do I feel like tearing human flesh apart?” “Why do I feel like an animal?” “Why is it that anytime I see the full moon, my whole body starts vibrating?” “Why do I wake up feeling like I went somewhere… like I fought someone… like I ate humans?” The last line was written bigger than the others. “What am I?” The moment my eyes finished reading those words, the book slipped from my hands.

Eva It’s my first time in the library, and I don’t think I was prepared for how it would feel. The air is thick with the scent of old paper and ink, something dry and ancient that settles into my lungs and wraps around me, musty, earthy and strangely comforting. Shelves stretch endlessly, towering and packed with books that looks like they’ve been here for centuries. Silence covers the entire hall, broken only by the occasional rustle of a book's page open on the table by the window or the distant creak of wooden shelves. There’s a serenity here that felt almost sacred, urging you to just stay calm and blend into the peacefulness.

I'm nervous in a way that I haven't been nervous in years. This book feels more vulnerable than the others. The first book was testimony. The second book was about healing. But this book is about my marriage. This book is about Dominic and me and the specific work that we've done. This book is me saying to the world: This is what real love looks like. The first reading is in New York. The bookstore is packed. More people than I expected. People who've read my other books. People who've heard about the foundation. People who are curious about what comes after survival and transformation.

Actually, stupidly, embarrassingly happy in the way that sat warm behind my ribs and refused to behave professionally. I picked up the second bag before my face could finish announcing this to the room. Inside was a book. Small, worn at the edges, the kind that came from a specific shop rather than an airport. I turned it over. Architecture. Edinburgh, specifically. Old drawings of buildings that had never been built. I looked up. He was watching Brynn try on the scarf. He wasn't looking at me. But the book was in my hands and it was specific in a way that airport gifts weren't and I pressed my lips together and looked back down at it.

But the gilded gold title was what caught my eye. Vampyres and their Nightmates My breath came in short, quick gasps, and I watched my hands reach for the book and flip it over as an observer, rather than an active participant. I could feel the book between my hands, even as my fingers moved without my permission, or my guidance; I could feel its strange, almost fuzzy texture, and I could smell the musty old-paper smell as I pressed it flat, open on the page Kathrena had been reading. Then it felt as though my dead heart stopped beating for a second time. Kathrena had been reading chapter five, but even as I read the embossed V I could see the chapter title beneath:

Chapter 22.1 I am currently holding my book of life, yes- I have this kind of book. Sometimes I get hurt, not an external wound, but an internal wound. I reread my pain in life again; maybe it's not bad to reread it again, right? In fact, it helps me to always remember the things I should away from and it might hurt me again. Until my eyes were fixed on a phrase I had written before. 'When your mood's not good without any reason, you definitely are missing someone.'

, he said standing up as I stood up as well. "Wait, I would like to give you something", I said as he turned to face me. I walked towards my study table bringing out one of the books that have helped me throughout my troubled days. I handed it over to him. " What is that?", he questioned, not making any attempt to collect the book. "It is titled 'QUESTIONS YOUNG PEOPLE ASK VOLUME 2'. This book helped me to discern how to control my feelings for the same sex. I thought it might also help you", I said as he shook his head.

And whatever it was, it was dangerous. The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it made me feel something I hadn't felt since that night in Florence. Safe. A week into this strange new normal, everything changed. We were in the living room, Cade reading construction reports while I pretended to focus on a book about fetal development. Thunder rumbled outside, rain lashing against the windows. The kind of storm that made you grateful for solid walls and warm shelter. I looked up and found him watching me. "What?" I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

He simply was, a mountain in the chaos, and she found herself wanting to scale him. On the fifth day, she found it. The book was unassuming, bound in a dark, supple hide that felt like the inside of a thigh. There was no title. She picked it up. The effect was instantaneous and overwhelming. It wasn't a memory or an emotion. It was pure, undiluted sensation. A phantom mouth closed over her nipple, tongue and teeth working in a rhythm that made her gasp. A hand, large and calloused, slid up the inside of her thigh. It was so vivid, so physical, her knees buckled and she had to brace herself against the shelves.