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see any harm in looking through the book, so she sat under the tree by the creek and read as much as she could before it got dark. She wanted to take it with her when her great-grandmother called her home, but she knew she couldn't. The owner of the book would surely want it back. So she reluctantly left it by the tree and ran home, trying to commit to memory everything she'd read.
    After dinner, Chloe took the deck of cards out of the kitchen drawer and went to her bedroom to try some of the tricks. She tried for a while, but she couldn't get them right without following the pictures in the book. She sighed and gathered the cards she'd spread out on the floor. She stood, and that's when she saw the book, the same book she'd left by the creek, on her nightstand.
    For a while after that, she thought her great- grandparents were surprising her with books. She'd find them on her bed, in her closet, in her favorite hideouts around the property. And they were always books she needed. Books on games or novels of adventure when she was bored. Books about growing up as she got older. But when her great-grandparents confronted her about all the books she had and where did she get the money to buy them, she realized they weren't the ones doing it.
    The next day, under her pillow, she found a book on clever storage solutions. It was exactly what she needed, something to show her how to hide her books.
    She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.
    She slowly picked the book up from the apartment floor. It was titled Finding Forgiveness.
    She stared at it a long time, a feeling bubbling inside her. It took a few moments for her to realize it was anger. Books were good for a story or to teach a card trick or two, but what were they really? Just paper and string and glue. They evoked emotions and that was why people felt a connection with them. But they had no emotions themselves. They didn't know betrayal. They didn't know hurt.
    What in the hell did they know about forgiveness?
    She went to the kitchen, put the book in the refrigerator and shut the door. She slid her back down the door and sat on the floor. Jake had woken her up that morning by kissing his way down her stomach. She could feel her lower abdominal muscles clench at the memory, even though she was furious with him now, livid. But she could never seem to help her physical reaction when it came to Jake. She was sometimes frightened by how much she felt for him, frightened by his intensity, by the way he never closed his eyes when they made love. He pulled her to him the way wind pulled leaves, like she had no control. She'd never loved anyone as much, or felt such passion. To this day she could make tap water boil just by kissing him. And she thought Jake was just as consumed by her. The day they met at the courthouse, on his first day of work out of law school, he forgot where he was going and sat at her shop staring at her until the district attorney herself came to look for him.
    As he had moved over her that morning, she'd met his eyes and felt that rush of overwhelming feeling, her body panicking with it. It was almost too much, yet she could never imagine being without it.
    "I would die before I could ever be with anyone else," she'd said, reaching up to touch his face. His eyes bored into hers, just as his body did.
    I would die before I was a game they played. One of those things couples did. An inside joke. If they were in a restaurant, one of them might say, I would die before I would ever eat that much again. And the other would say, I would die before I let you. Or if they were out walking through the park, one of them might laugh and say, I would die before I would ever make a dog of mine wear a bandana. And the other would say, I would die before I let you. But it was always serious in bed. I would die before I would leave you. I would die before I could ever get enough of this.
    Jake had suddenly closed his eyes, which he never