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He shoves the hair out of his eyes, though it falls back again, and then he looks at us. I’d expected to see him...bored, too cool for this. He’s not at all. There’s a fire in him that I haven’t seen before.

“I chose Fahrenheit 451,” he says.

My heart beats, fast and light as a stone skimming water. It’s a book that wasn’t allowed at my old school, one I was always curious about. I stare at my desk in order to simply hear his words. It’s confusing that he’s turning out to be so much more than he seems.

“It takes place in this dystopian society where most books are banned,” he continues, “and the firemen are actually the ones setting the fires.”

My head jerks up and his eyes are already on me, daring me to complain. So, after setting my house on fire, the book he chose is about arson. Did he do it simply to bait me?

His gaze returns to everyone else. “The firemen...their job is actually to burn the books, but one of them, this guy, Montag, takes a bunch of them to read overnight. He discovers that books are a way to understand life, but this society doesn’t want to understand—they just want to numb themselves with TV and this weird headset radio.”

My stomach draws tight—fear and excitement at once. It’s as if a secret lies inside this book he’s describing. A secret I’m supposed to know.

“I guess,” he concludes, “it’s really about society’s fear of what it doesn’t understand...In the book, they destroy anything that might make them question their own way of life, and how can you say you disagree with something if you’re too scared to even examine it? Questions are vital. They’re the only way a society progresses. They led to the abolition of slavery and equal rights. Every society that ever existed, every improvement to a way of life came because someone questioned the status quo. For me...it came down to knowing I’d always want to be brave enough to keep asking the questions, no matter how much the answer scares me.”

I stare at my desk as the class claps.

His speech felt directed at me, but it couldn’t have been: he doesn’t know enough about Bright Covenant to realize how apt a comparison between his book’s repressive society and mine really is. To know that I’m not allowed to read most books, to watch most shows, to question the rules or explore anything beyond our narrow world.

And Fahrenheit 451 is among those forbidden things, but why? What’s wrong with pointing out the dangers of a society that wants to suppress questions and free thought...unless you’re worried that people will question the ways your society is doing the same?

For the rest of the day, when I’m not worrying about my own presentation tomorrow, I’m thinking about what Ford said. I’m also trying to put a name to this feeling in my chest at the thought of him standing in front of the class—it’s like curiosity, but with an ache beneath it.

Maybe it’s a feeling that has a name in other languages, but not in ours. Like schadenfreude, or the million words Eskimos have for snow.

While I study in the library that afternoon, waiting for a freshman tutee who is clearly not coming, I hear Ford’s voice in my head again and again. That husky, low note to it that actually seems sincere. How can you say you disagree with something if you’re too scared to even examine it?

My parents would argue that all the questions have been asked and answered suitably, so I don’t need to ask them. But how can they know when they haven’t heard the music? When they haven’t read the books?

My church would argue that thinking this is a sign I’ve taken a dangerous detour, and maybe I have. Sometimes you crave what you need—you crave oxygen when you’re drowning and water when you’re thirsty—and sometimes what you crave isn’t a need at all, but a dark sort of pull. The problem is that they feel very much the same when you’re in the throes of it.

As I creep through the stacks like a criminal, looking for the book, am I caving to something, or am I healing it?

I find Fahrenheit 451 easily, looking over my shoulder as I turn to the first page.

It was a pleasure to burn, it begins.

A shiver crawls up my spine and down my arms. How could a guy who delivered such a thoughtful speech set fire to someone’s home? And how could it possibly not be him when this is the book he chose to present?

I check over my shoulder again and return to the page. And then the next. I keep telling myself I’m going to stop, but I don’t. An hour passes. It’s growing late and none of my homework is done, but I only want to sink further into this story, watch Montag’s progress as if our lives are one, as if his discoveries are mine. When the library quiets, I know I’ve got to leave, but there’s a pang in my chest as I slide the book back into its place, my fingers slow to unstick themselves from the cover.

I bike home with a million questions running through my head. Guilt over what I’ve done only hits as I walk into the house, if it’s even guilt—I might just be scared of getting caught.

Over dinner, our father asks what we learned in school. Faith has a long unspooling answer that is only half things she learned and half random occurrences.

Hope politely recites one fact from each class.

“And you, Grace?” asks my father.

It was a pleasure to burn.

How can you say you disagree with something if you’re too scared to even examine it?

Suddenly it seems insane, and ironic, that the book was banned and that any reasonable person would object to me reading it. My heart is beating too hard, but I also can’t imagine it’s as big a deal as I’ve turned it into.

“In English, someone did a book report on Fahrenheit 451,” I tell him. “I’d like to check it out from the library.”

My father’s gaze darkens. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”