Fiction

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Sitting on the floor of my apartment, surrounded by three shelves worth of romance novels, I made one startling conclusion.
I am a back round character.
I am one of the cleverly placed people designed to complement the major players in a story. I am one of the characters known to make sarcastically pithy remarks or provide the story with needed comic relief. One of those who situations are used to highlight the major themes of the story or used, on the rare occasion, to offer insight to our hero, who naturally doesn’t really listen and finds out the hard way anyways.
I am the best friend, the quirky neighbor, the “other’’ sister and, worst of all, the ex-girlfriend.
“It’s not fair!” The words bounce off the sea-green walls of my cramped living room as I began piling up, the now offensive, bits of literature scattered around me and move to return them to the vacant shelves.
I am on the pages of the books in my hands. My life fits in a couple of paragraphs inserted here and there in someone else’s story.
I am left to wonder why a best friend/quirky neighbor/other sister/ex-girlfriend never gets a novel to herself, where all the people in those tales came from, even what their dreams for their futures are. Is it weird that I want more for them?
Is it wrong to want more for me?
A snort/scoff followed by a resigned “probably” Is all the answer I have. I shake my head in disgust not over the books lined on the shelves but over the vain self righteous fire burning in my chest.
“Okay, so I’m not in the limelight all of the time but at least I am in the story.” I even have my uses. Pithy remarks and rare insight, every hero needs someone to provide them.
I stand a moment looking over the collection of paperbacks on my bookcase. I really do love those stories, offensive as they seemed to me moments ago. I’ll even admit that part of what makes them so interesting is the full cast of characters within them. Every character is their unique person designed to enhance the strengths or flaws of the the main characters. The best stories contain back round characters that you can feel as though they are your best friend/quirky neighbor/other sister/boyfriends ex girlfriend, you love or hate them because they are written in away that is so believable, so alive.
I have heard the saying that it takes all kinds to make our world, I suppose I can accept that the idea is the same with romance novels.
I flipped the power switch on the kettle as the heat of my anger, directed mainly at the handful of authors found in my small library, started to cool. Waiting for the water to boil left time for me to recall favorite characters that had their stories weaved in and out of another’s more brilliant tale.
Even in my very favorite books I am left wanting more for those characters in the shadows. As some people might want to rewrite the ending of a story they read, I think of what might have happened with the extra characters in the stories. The characters that didn’t finish with a happily ever after all tied up in ribbons and bows in the epilogue. I make up tales of happier days to come. Or create for them pasts filled with intrigue and adventure that had shaped the character into the one seen in the already written story. I give many the opportunity to experience love, success, failure and even at times pain in their unwritten lives.
I laugh thinking of the heros that I like to make up for all the ex-girlfriends left alone in those stories, those misguided girls who let Mr. Right slip out of their fingers and into the hands of another woman.
A thought hit me as I added a tea bag and sugar into the cup of boiling water, the thought that those authors could have chosen to leave those characters, those stories unwritten. The few paragraphs, the ones that barely introduced me to them but yet managed to have charm me, might forever have been stored away in the brain of some romantic genius. The pithy comments, rare bits of insight, even a silly scheme or two, seem completely irrelevant to the plot but yet they are still written in.
Sipping my tea, I ponder those thoughts a minute. The only reason I can see that they are in the story was that the author could not not include them in the book. Those characters and their tales no longer could remain untold.
I smiled as I came to my last conclusion of the night.
I am a back round character, one that will not remain unwritten.

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