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.

I think I have read every book at the library. Every novel, that is. Every novel that I want to read. Or might be willing to give a try. If someone had told me that this was possible ten years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Perhaps he would ask me what books mean to me. I would tell him that it means living another life;