“About what?” Daisy asks. “It’s just reading a few books and being a tour guide, right? Or am I missing something?”

She’s missing something.

She’s missing a lot of things.

I know it sounds ridiculous and I joke about being a book hater, but I really don’t know if I can do this. I read an article once about brain science—I was in college and pretending to be an intellectual, sue me—and it said how when you’re reading a book, your brain can’t differentiate between the character in the story and you. In your mind, you are this character; you’re living their experiences. This left me feeling both horrified and vindicated. Because herein lies my issue with books: escapism leads to denial and denial leads to heartbreak. Roaming my favorite places with Jasper, reading stories about good guys and happily ever afters? It’s the one book I have read and the ending sucks. I’m afraid I’m going to get sucked into the fantasy. Into the lies. And I’m not sure I have it in me to get back up after the inevitable fall.

Getting to know Daisy has been a very pleasant surprise. She’s fun and hilarious and we have more in common than I could’ve ever dreamt. But, because we’re about twenty years late on the sister-bonding train, she wasn’t there a few months ago when I didn’t know if I was going to be able to recover from the back-to-back blows that kept knocking me down. She didn’t see me trying to pick up the pieces when I lost two of the biggest parts of myself within weeks of each other. First Gran, then photography. I’m just now settling into a rhythm where I don’t feel like I’m moments away from crumbling.

“It was . . . it was difficult to walk away from my life when Gran died.” I tell Daisy the understatement of the century. “Photography, I don’t know how to explain it. It was my passion, but more than that, it was my safe place. It set my soul at ease. I love it in a way I can’t do it halfway. When I walked away, I needed a clean break or else I wouldn’t have been able to focus on keeping the Book Nook running.” And out of our scumbag father’s hands, though I definitely do not say that.

I think a big reason things have been so nice between me and Daisy is because we haven’t discussed dear old Dad at all. I’d very much like to keep it that way.

“So you’re nervous that playing travel guide for a hot author will put you back in a dark place.” She summarizes my worries perfectly.