For as long as I could remember, I had been transparent to myself, unselfconscious, learning, doing, most of every day. Now I was in my own way; I myself was a dark object I could not ignore. I couldn't remember how to forget myself. I didn't want to think about myself, to reckon myself in, to deal with myself every livelong minute on top of everything else - but swerve as I might, I couldn't avoid it. I was a boulder blocking my own path. I was a dog barking between my own ears, a barking dog who wouldn't hush. So this was adolescence. Is this how the people around me had died on their feet - inevitably, helplessly? Perhaps their own selves eclipsed the sun for so many years the world shriveled around them, and when at least their inescapable orbits had passed through these dark egoistic years it was too late, they had adjusted. Must I then lose the world forever, that I had so loved? Was it all, the whole bright and various planet, where I had been so ardent about finding myself alive, only a passion peculiar to children, that I would outgrow even against my will?

Will you be able to touch me again without thinking about Sean? I don't want you to be disgusted by me.

Don't see me as a girl. See me as a buddy of yours or something." He cast his eyes downward and didn't look back up to my face. I looked down and groaned. Such a guy. "My buddies don't have boobs, as far as I know." "Because you felt them up to be sure?" I chuckled, against my better judgement. Once again, his mouth dropped open.

I love you, Skye. You__e in my heart, in my head, under my skin. You__e my present and my future.

Maybe Duke was just the kind of person you don__ keep in your life, but the kind of person that changes your life forever.

I love you to insanity. I'm not even sure if it's a good thing.'' _ Duke