I Read Therefore I Am Novels & Stories

Today that smile holds better than any armor. ⸻ By afternoon I withdraw to my study and pull out the thick white sheet on which, weeks ago, I only dared write a title: The House Order. The first sentence is always the hardest; not because I don’t know what to write—I do—but because you have to put weight under the sentence, and weight doesn’t come from ornament. “This house stands not by its walls, but because we breathe as one.”

Nothing good has happened to her these past weeks so it was difficult for her to think of something that could distract her. She suddenly remembered the words her father had told her to always say to herself whenever she found herself in a difficult situation. “I am the guardian of my mind, body and soul. I have the power to control the way I respond to what happens to me. I will get up again when I fall and I will never give up. I won’t give in to my fear. I will rather control my fears and overcome it. I am strong. I am brave. I am a fighter.” Amber said those words and repeated it over and over again till she finally returned to her normal self. She did it. The cravings were gone.

I live every day on purpose because I am capable of anything. I repeated those words to myself over and over until I believed them. My grandfather used to repeat that phrase to me all the time when I was younger. After his passing, those words became my mantra, and I lived religiously by them. I took another look in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw, but I told myself it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to like my appearance to be a good person. I just needed to do good. Is it too late to convince the mystery man not to destroy the library?

The only way that anybody out there can know about what is going on within David is if David tells them. Am I imagining the face of my first lover right now? Am I performing a piece of mental arithmetic? Am I daydreaming about the next holiday I want to go on? There is, quite literally, no way for you to know. Even if I tell you I could be lying, it is I and I alone who have access to my internal mental states. The entire scientific endeavour comes to a halt at my scull. And at everybody else's of course. The inner and the outer realities seem to belong to two different orders of existence. Rene Descartes drew our attention to this when he wrote the most famous statement in all of Western ph

I remain standing. I always do. Not because I am strong. Because someone must still be here when the ground shifts again.

choose. That tiny point of will, smaller than thought, more fundamental than consciousness, held against the Void. And in holding, it began to define itself. I choose, therefore I... Am? No. Am was existence. This was prior to existence. I choose, therefore I might. Possibility without actuality. Potential without form. The Void pressed harder, trying to erase even choice. But choice wasn't something I had—it was what I was. Strip away everything else, and that remained. The capacity to decide, even when there was nothing to decide about.

Necessary choices. I repeat that to myself until I almost believe it.

I am strong. And I will not let fear rule me.

Harper POV I am not a toy. I repeat it in my head like a mantra as I cross campus with my chin up and my shoulders squared, like posture can hold a spine together when it’s splitting from the inside. I am not a toy. I am not a distraction. I am not something you pick up when you’re bored and put down when you’re done.

“you can’t win.” The words rang hollow at first, like I was just speaking to convince myself. But the more I said them, the sharper they became. Stronger. Real. I stood, shoulders squared. “I am Maxwell,” I said to the empty room, my voice low but steady. “I don’t break. I don’t run. And I don’t lose what’s mine.”