We had a library, filled from ceiling to floor with books. I considered them my personal gateway to world's far away that I could only get lost in for moments at a time, till my own world needed my attention.

I'd read over half of them. But some weren't really what I liked. I wanted a library of my own. Filled with the original hardcover collections of the classics. A whole shelf section for Shakespeare, another for Charles Dickens, Jane Austen...and so on and so forth. Then I could just run my fingers along their spine and sigh in bliss or satisfaction.

They held the lives I wished I could live. The lives I imagined living but I couldn't.
Life was hard. Real life, that is. And it'll always be. I wasn't any different from anyone else. Life had always dealt me a heavy hand though. I had come to accept it as that in itself made the pain bearable.

I had a plant. It's a bryophyllum, really. It was really pretty (well as pretty as a bryophyllum could be). It should have died under the harsh conditions I've let it undergo (not voluntarily) but I loved it so much it was practically my baby, but it should have died when I brought it home with me after WAEC. It should have died when I didn't water it for days at a time and it could only have rainwater, but a bryophyllum survives harsh conditions.

Much like a cactus, my favourite plant. It shows that there could be life even in the worst conditions. Where there is life, there is hope, they say. Or maybe I'm getting the saying all wrong. Didn't matter.

I touched my necklace. It was a habit I'd formed over time. It was a sort of comfort for me.

I had come to love the beautiful, sleekit surface of the necklace. The silver melted into a cross. It wasn't the ordinary everyday necklace pendant, crucifix or rosary. This cross was complicated and mystical looking. It was more expensive than anything I'd had in my life. But, I had come to treasure it, as it had been given as a gift to me since birth. A gift I got from someone neither me nor my family remembered. Or maybe they just pretended not to.

I never took it off. I just couldn't. Even so, I didn't know how. It had no clasps at the back. It wasn't tight around my neck, but it wasn't big enough to be pulled over my head. I never wanted to lose it. It got showered with compliments whenever it accidentally showed and glittered beneath my clothes.

It had never been stolen though, which I find suspicious, because everything that was found pretty in my school was somehow stolen. I also didn't see how it could be stolen because it couldn't be removed, but I assumed they'd have found a way by now. But they didn't. I couldn't complain though.