If He Had Been with Me

by Laura Nowlin

I can feel the printed words seeping through my skin and into my veins, rushing to my heart and marking it forever. I want to savor this wonder, this happening of loving a book and reading it for the first time, because the first time is always the best, and I will never read this book for the first time ever again.

This is friendship, and it is love, but I already know what they have not learned yet; how dangerous friendship is, how damaging love can be.