Stuck Between the Pages
by Julia Vellucci
How do I know I’m real and not just a fragment of somebody’s imagination?
How do I know I’m not just words on a page living in a book people read to fulfill their time, not realizing they are ending mine?
I don’t. Nobody besides the creator of our universe, our God, will ever know. But whatever it is I am will always feel so emotional driven, so heartfelt, like wet ink on the page.
If I was fictional, in some ways, I’d be more alive than the reader who needed to enter my world to escape theirs. After all, they cared enough to go through the pages of my story, read in between the lines in their attempt to get to know me, the parts that aren’t written but are still told. Their eyes were glued to the pages I see as my life, something I try to escape just as they do but can’t, allowing all they read of mine to be so raw, so human.
The more pages the reader turned, the more I lost of myself as it’s hard for me to not be so consumed by the past that I lose it all, the present and the future.
I hope there’s a sequel, more to me than just the past I can never leave behind, so much so that the lines between what is written, my insecurities, fears, worries are what write all I face, not the pen, the ink or even the author. But all the pain, betrayal and anguish I feel when I should be feeling love, joy and peace.
I wonder if the reader thinks my life and I are funny to them, makes their life look good in comparison. Or I wonder if they’re so intrigued by me because they see something in me I don’t see in myself and maybe never will.
Like any story, I was just a character, just mere words on a page that would continue to repeat no matter how many times it was read because she was trapped in it, always living in the past no matter what page was turned to. Nobody cares how much suffering a character goes through, let alone those that inflicted it. All that matters is that they can use it to escape.
I don’t choose what happens in my life, in my world. Even the decisions I make are chosen by a combination of my mind and heart which are both haunted by the demons of my past. Your story continues past the pages. Mine, however, is stuck in time and will be repeated until death do us part, loyal reader.
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Julia Vellucci is a 20-year-old girl, born and raised in Mississauga, Ontario, with eight romance books, a fantasy novella, as well as an anthology all traditionally published with Ukiyoto Publishing. She also has a novel on a pay-to-read program on the app iStory, a short story published in Polar Expressions’ anthology “The Path Collection” as well as another short story published in the Humber Literacy Review. Additionally, she is a journalism student with some articles published on Humber News, Humber Et Cetera, and even on the Humber Hawks’ site. Vellucci has never been good at visual art unlike her mom and younger sister who inspired her to find a way to express her creative side, through writing.
She discovered her love for creative writing in the tenth grade when she first began to bring fictional characters to life through the written craft thanks to a school book club she was part of and couldn’t help but want to discover what made her characters unique and carry out their story until the very end. Vellucci’s dream is to be able to inspire individuals through her words as she believes words can project more than actions ever could.
Readers can find her on Goodreads or visit her website at juliavellucci.weebly.com. She is also on Instagram under the username juliavellucciauthor.
