The girl’s leg bounced up and down, jittery and uncalm. Right now, she was sitting straight up, rigid in her chair, but she figured in a few minutes she would be fidgeting around, squirming in her seat. She loved reading, honestly, she did. And she loved this book. But there was so much going on around her. Everyone was loud at the dinner table, laughing heartily as they traded stories, or clicking their tongues as they bemoaned whichever stock was going down. At any moment, they could call on her. They could say, “How was your day?” They could take her book away, and not give it back until much, much later. That risk was too great, and so she was on edge, half-listening to the conversation, half-absorbed in the story. It was like a game of tug of war in her head. The book was pulling on her, trying to sweep her away. And she wanted it to sweep her away. Yet she was forced to listen as Father addressed one of his brothers, just in case he directed his next question at her. The bouncing in her leg was uncontrollable now. She needed to calm it, to make it go away. It was distracting, so distracting. She flipped a page in her book. This was it. She was close to the end. And here she read, her breath nearly stolen away, as the Angel of Death walked down the streets of the book, collecting the souls of the characters from their lifeless bodies. And yet she wasn’t crying, wasn’t weeping the way she should’ve, as the main character’s world was destroyed. Because part of her was still listening. Part of her was still anchored in that terrible harbor called reality. She wanted to finish her book, wanted to get it over with, so she could set it down beside her, and pretend that she had always been paying attention. At the same time, though, she wanted these last few pages to go on forever, so she would never have to leave the rich world of the book, and return permanently to weak, watered-down reality. And then the book was over. Her hand flipped the last page, revealing the back cover, the end of the story. She felt a mess, as if her brain were all screwed up. She wasn’t ready to leave; she wanted to delve back into the world of the book… “How was your day yesterday?” Her father’s gruff voice yanked her into reality. She put the book down, lightning-fast. “Good,” she replied shakily, feeling raw without the comfort of the characters who she had become so close to. “It was good.”