Free Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult

had rearranged my whole house. We don’t really know each other, Nicholas, and I’ve been thinking about that all night too: just when I’ve convinced myself that this is the most right thing in the world, my common sense comes tramping in. What’s your favorite —butter or chocolate chip?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Nicholas said. He was smiling. He liked trying to follow her conversation. It reminded him of a pet rabbit he’d had once that he tried to take for a walk on a leash.
    â€œDon’t tease me,” Paige said, pulling away. She walked into the kitchen and pulled a tray out of the oven. “You’ve never used these cookie sheets,” she said. “The stickers were still on them.”
    Nicholas picked up a spatula and lifted a cookie off the sheet, then bounced it from palm to palm as it cooled. “I didn’t know I had them,” he said. “I don’t cook much.”
    Paige watched him taste the cookie. “Neither do I. I guess you should know that, shouldn’t you? We’ll probably starve within a month.”
    Nicholas looked up. “But we’ll die happy,” he said. He took a second bite. “These are good, Paige. You’re underestimating yourself.”
    Paige shook her head. “I once set the oven on fire cooking a TV dinner. I didn’t take it out of the box. Cookies are my whole repertoire. But I can do those from scratch. You seemed like a butter cookie kind of guy. I tried to remember if you ever ordered chocolate at the diner, and you didn’t, I don’t think, so you have to be a vanilla person.” When Nicholas stared at her, Paige grinned at him. “The world is divided into chocolate people and vanilla people. Don’t you know that, Nicholas?”
    â€œIt’s that simple?”
    Paige nodded. “Think about it. No one ever likes the two halves of a Dixie ice cream cup equally. You either save the chocolate because you like it best, or you save the vanilla. If you’re really lucky, you can swap with someone so you get a whole cup of the flavor you like best. My dad used to do that for me.”
    Nicholas thought about the kind of day he had just come from. He was still on rotation in Emergency. This morning there had been a six-car pileup on Route 93, and the wounded were brought to Mass General. One had died, one had been in neurosurgery for eight hours, one had gone into cardiac arrest. During lunch a six-year-old girl was brought in, shot through the stomach in a playground when she was caught in the crossfire of two youth gangs. And then, in his apartment, there was Paige. To come home to Paige every day would be a relief. To come home to her would be a blessing.
    â€œI take it you’re a chocolate person,” Nicholas said.
    â€œOf course.”
    Nicholas stepped forward and put his arms on either side of her, bracing her against the sink. “You can have my half of a Dixie cup anytime,” he said. “You can have anything you want.”

    Nicholas had read once of a five-foot-three-inch woman who had lifted an overturned school bus off her seven-year-old daughter. He had watched a 60 Minutes segment about an unmarried soldier who threw himself on top of a grenade to protect the life of a fellow soldier who had a family waiting back home. Medically, Nicholas could credit this to the sudden adrenaline rush caused by crisis situations. Practically, he knew that some measure of emotional commitment was involved. And he realized, to his surprise, that he would have done such things for Paige. He would swim a channel, take a bullet, trade his life. The idea shook Nicholas, chilled his blood. Maybe it was only fierce protectiveness, but he was beginning to believe it was love.
    In spite of himself, in spite of his hasty proposal, Nicholas did not believe in romantic love. He did not believe in being swept off your feet, or in love at first sight—either of which