Yes I can. Watch me walking away. You will forget. You won't care after a while. You will forget my face, my voice, or that I even existed at all. It is the way of things. As long as you cannot find me, I am safe from you. You are safe from me.

Darren.

And then I remember that he knows where I work.

I must hope that he understands that I do not want to know him, or of him. I must hope that he does not understand that I am lying to myself. I must hope that he thinks of me as a heartless bitch, rather than a frightened coward. I hope for all this, and continue my lonely walk down the beach.

The sea is angry, it is raging. It's slate gray waters pull at my feet. It says to me, "We are one and the same. Your pain is my pain, your rage is mine. I know how you feel. Child, do what you will. Who is there to judge you? Lose control. Thrash and be wild and free. It is what you were born for. Love and hate, drown the willing."

But I pull my feet from the water, and continue farther in shore. I do not know what I would do, if I were to lose control. But I have always felt that a monster lies within me. Something dark and wild in me aches to lose control, to be wild and free and full of sin. I feel that if I indulged in my baser impulses, I could become something less than human. No, more than human. I would not that I subject anyone to such a thing. Much less someone that I might care for.

He reminds me of the sun, of the light, of life, of the sensation of touch. But he is only a man. I must remember that he is only a man, and that no man has ever stood up to the picture of them that I build in my head. Men are disappointing. I will not allow myself to glorify him without purpose. I will not allow myself to know him at all. From this point onward, I tell myself, I will not think about him, not even if he crosses me on the street. I will not care. I cannot