She walked through the shelves bored, and not addressing any of the books that were patiently waiting on shelves for someone to pick them up. She randomly chose a book from the shelf and picked it up. She took it for no particular reason. The book was old. She could see that by the way the covers were slightly bent inwards. As if they wanted to close themselves and keep what they were carrying. She started flipping through the pages, which almost fell out as she flipped through them. She neither knew nor cared about what was in it, but she had nothing else to do, so she decided to give it a chance. She sat quietly at the table by the window. The library was quiet with no one else but her in it. She did not start reading the book from the beginning, believing that it wasn't important enough to read it from the beginning. On the edge of the page she opened, right between the two paragraphs, there was a smile drawn. The smile was not too big or too conspicuous. There was one curved line that represented a smile and two dots that allowed the smile to see. It wasn't perfect nor symmetrical, but it still awakened a feeling of happiness in her. At first, she thought someone had done it out of boredom. People often make drawings in books when they don't know what to do with themselves, and she was no stranger to the concept of vandalism in this library. But the smile didn't look like someone's vandalism. Not at all. The smile looked like it was there for a reason. She looked at the sentence above, and that sentence was the most depressing thing she had read in a while. She shivered at the thought that someone could leave a smile next to such a sentence.The smile wasn't right next to that sentence, but between the lines, as if filling the space that was not filled with words. But she was curious by nature of it and continued reading. The next sentence was nothing like the previous one. The sentence was so positive, so beautiful as if someone else had written it, and the rest of the book continued like that each sentence was more beautiful than the other. She was confused. How was that possible? A minute ago, she was reading the saddest sentence, and now she's reading such beautiful lines that would make anyone's day. She could feel every line. She could imagine herself in all the events mentioned in the book. She couldn't put the book down as if it were now a part of her. Time passed, but she didn't get up from the chair. She realized that the smile wasn't there for no reason.
The smile changed everything. Someone read this book before her. Someone who didn't feel the need to leave a name, a date or a day. Someone who, instead of words, changed the book with a smile. She read the entire book in one sitting without a single break. She looked up to find the Moon already shining brightly in the sky. Had so much time passed? On the way home, she couldn't think about anything else but the book, about the unexpected happy ending of that book, everything that the book had simply opened her eyes to. She stayed up all night thinking about the book that changed her view on life.
The next day, after a sleepless night, the first thing she did was go back to the library. She went to the same shelf that was just a random shelf until yesterday. She took the same book, that until yesterday was just an ordinary old book, and sat down in the same place that was just an ordinary desk yesterday, and she started reading. Soon enough, she came across that the same smile, and she felt as if she was reading the book for the first time. She felt and indescribable feeling that gave her goosebumps all over her body. And before she could blink, she read the whole book again. She started coming to the library every single day, just to read that incredible book again. The book made her very fortunate, especially those lines where a smile was drawn. Just seeing that smile looking at her from a page could make her day. She no longer felt alone. She knew that whenever she was sad, she could find comfort in the book. Its pages made her feel understood and safe, and every time she was reading it, all of her worries would disappear.
And one day, just like any other day, she came to the library. She came up to, now, her shelf, took her book and sat at her desk. She wasn't joyful that day, but she knew that the book would calm her down. She opened the book and started to read it. You could see she was excited by the way she was shaking her leg. And finally, she reached the lines between which a smile would always await for her, but there was none. She blinked a few times, thinking she couldn't see it because she was tired, but after many attempts, she couldn't see it. Perhaps she took another copy of the book, but no, that was the only version in the library. Maybe, the librarian erased the smile from the book thinking it was vandalism, but no, the librarian couldn't care less about books in this library. But despite the lack of smile, she continued to read thinking that nothing would change. But the book wasn't quite the same. Not at all. There weren't those beautiful lines that would make her smile from ear to ear. Those lines were replaced with lines full of agony and sadness. The book was so sorrowful, but something made her continue reading. She felt terribly uncomfortable. And just like that, she read the whole book with a feeling of sickness never leaving her. She just lost the only thing that could make her happy. And just like the first time she read the book, she couldn't sleep. But this time it was not from happiness and excitement. This time it was from pure anger. Why did the book change? Why did the smile leave her?
And then, it clicked to her. Maybe it wasn't about the smile in the book, maybe it was about real life. Did the book try to tell her to smile more? And she decided to listen to her intuition. From then on, she started smiling more. She started to smile at strangers, to complement her friends, and visit her family. Her life was full of positivity again. And the smile in the book didn't only change the ending of the book, but it also changed the ending of her life. Because the smile was never meant to stay on that page, it was meant to live in her. One little drawn smile changed everything.