How Do I Tell Him?

Two days ago, a friend of mine asked me to tell him the stories I have been reading lately.

That was the exact moment I felt a sudden, bizarre wave of regret for not reading Wattpad stories anymore. Yes, it has been two whole years since I last opened the app.

But standing there, I genuinely thought, “I should be reading Wattpad right now.”

Why? Because ever since I started diving into writers like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, I haven’t been able to look at the world the same way.

I freely admit that my daily reading habit started on Wattpad with 18+ stories. I’m not ashamed to tell the world that, because that habit is exactly what led me here. It led me to the classics, to a Master’s degree in Literature, and to a life of writing, interpreting, imagining, and falling deeply in love with words.

But standing in front of my friend, I realized I was completely stuck. How can I possibly summarize a masterpiece like White Nights to someone?

How can I tell him about the Dreamer, who suffers from a profound loneliness not because he has to, but because he chooses to?

How can I explain that this man doesn’t even try to find anyone to share his feelings with, to the point where he doubts his own emotions—and even his own existence?

How do I describe the girl he meets on his way home, the first person he has spoken to in forever, who warns him on day one not to fall in love with her, only for him to fall anyway?

The kind of love we see in modern stories doesn't hold a candle to what happens across those four short nights.

How do I convey the raw feelings the Dreamer pours out to Nastenka? Or Nastenka’s own agony, literally chained to her grandmother, waiting desperately for the love of her life?

How do I explain the sheer selflessness of the Dreamer assuring her that her lover will arrive, or the weight of their final goodbye kiss?

Dostoevsky mentions Nastenka 138 times, yet never once gives the Dreamer a name.

Above all, how am I supposed to conclude the story when I don’t even know the answer myself?

Is the Dreamer still dreaming about those four nights? Is he genuinely happy that Nastenka reunited with her love? Or is he just stuck in that same room, numbly staring at the walls?

If this were a Wattpad story, it would be easy. I could just tell him, “Misthi had two kids with Kabir and they lived happily ever after.”

But it isn’t a Wattpad story. It is real life on the page—the brutal, messy life everyone actually faces.

And it gets even harder. Let’s set aside Dostoevsky's 100-page novella for a moment and look at Anton Chekhov’s four-page short story, "The Chemist’s Wife."

The haunting discomfort Dostoevsky builds over a hundred pages is nothing compared to what Chekhov pulls off in just four.

How can I possibly make my friend understand the crushing loneliness the chemist’s wife feels while her husband sleeps right next to her?

How do I put into words her desperate longing to be loved, to get attention, to just feel alive?

How do I explain the sudden rush of blood she feels when those officers flirt with her in the dead of night inside the pharmacy? Or the absolute heartbreak when her husband wakes up and instantly ruins that nameless, two-minute taste of freedom?

How do I make him see the single tear dropping from her eye?

HOW?

I look at my friend, and I realize it would be so effortless to tell him how Hardin made Tessa feel after she found out she was being used the whole time.

It would be so simple to explain how Anastasia Steele fell for Christian Grey, and how Grey finally accepted her.

I can easily explain plot points like that. But these classics? I don't even know how to begin.