“You and Wes," she said, triumphant, "are just likethis ."She was holding a book, a paperback romance. The title, emblazoned in gold across the cover, wasForbidden, and the picture beneath it was of a man in a pirate outfit, eye patch and all, clutching a small, extremelybusty woman to his chest. In the background, there was a deserted island surrounded by blue water."We're pirates?" I said.She tapped the book with one fingernail. "This story," she said, "is all about two people who can't be togetherbecause of other circumstances. But secretly, they pine and lust for each other constantly, the very fact thattheir love is forbidden fueling their shared passion.""Did you just make that up?""No," she said, flipping the book over to read the back cover. "It's right here! And it's totally you and Wes.You can't be together, which is exactly why you want to be. And why you can't admit it to us, because thatwould make it less secret and thus less passionate.”

“Why is someone only passionate about books if they're into literary books that win prizes? Why can't you be passionate about books and only read romance?”

“Sometimes I read the same books over and over and over. What's great about books is that the stuff inside doesn't change. People say you can't judge a book by its cover but that's not true because it says right on the cover what's inside. And no matter how many times you read that book the words and pictures don't change. You can open and close books a million times and they stay the same. They look the same. They say the same words. The charts and pictures are the same colors.Books are not like people. Books are safe.”

“I love you, Jason. You have no idea how much I love you – she said. She wanted to add how she knew the shape of each of his fingernails, how she could know exactly which of his fingers was caressing her back, which fingertip was resting on her face. His every touch occupied her heart and increased her passion. She was never hiding that from him. That’s why she repeated – I love you.”

“Everybody thinks I'm this delicate little girl. But you can't tell a book by it's cover.' To which she added a momentary smile.”

“Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?”