It's like a friend you'd almost forgotten you had until you accidentally stumble across it one day in your search for something soothing to read. 

There it sits high up on your bookshelf, sandwiched between books you have read and some you will never read.  There, there is the one that you go back to again and again, despite the many unread stories taking up space on your shelf and nightstand.

Before you know it, you have the book in your hand and you are curled up on the couch, once again immersed in the world of your favorite heroine.  Each city street or hedgerow is so familiar as if you have walked those grounds a hundred times before.  You relish entering the familiar kitchen or the basement alchemical workshop as you would your own home; if you could, you would spend a quiet afternoon there, sipping tea in front of the kitchen fire, or rummaging through ancient books and jars filled with mysterious things in the workshop.

You eagerly anticipate every plot twist as if it were a long-expected guest that you wait for from your perch by the window.  There it is!  The car has turned the corner and makes its way up the drive, signaling the arrival of your guest, just as the new chapter reveals what you already knew would happen and yet keeps your heart racing all the same.  You read on, grateful to once again be in this familiar world, uncaring that soon you will reach the end of your book, and have to put it back on your shelf--no, you try not to think about the end.

For now, you content yourself with lingering in the pages of your worn book, taking comfort in the old story that tells itself again and stretches beyond the page into your waking imagination.