Boyd was the only one who understood me. He was the only one who could leash my passions.

I wanted Boyd—

Dear God, I wanted Boyd to stop me.

With this thought, my breath whooshed out of me as if I had been kicked. My stomach cramped and I fell to my knees. After a few moments the pain eased and I made my way back to the couch, feeling frail and delicate. I lay down, suppressing urges to bolt. Compelling urges born of panic insisted that I pack my bag and leave Lewis’s house that very night. “Go,” my insides said, “without even packing a bag.” As soon as that thought was clear in my mind, it was replaced by another that said, “Go to the bus station. Entertain yourself.” And another devil on my shoul­der said, “Find someone in need.”

My body seemed to throb with each new idea, but it would not respond with action. I felt bloated and heavy, as if the excesses of the past three nights had finally wreaked havoc with my internal system.

I closed my eyes, and laid my flushed cheek against the cool plastic of the couch. I was hoping to sleep, hoping to bypass the maddening internal dialogue that I knew would plague me as long as I denied myself the darkness.

I closed my eyes and began to search for a place inside, the meditation place, the one place that had aided me before. I heard the music, the beautiful music, and the yammering inside my head was stilled.

I listened to the music, relaxed into the meditation, swayed back and forth with the rhythm. Just as I felt centered again, the music parted and I heard Her voice, the clear, beautiful female voice that spoke with delicious lips right next to my ear. The voice was crisp and cool like a mountain stream, and the words massaged my heart and I melted into them. She said,

“It is time, Angelina. Come. Follow me.”

I saw a wisp of something ethereal slip down the corridor of my mind, and I followed.

I awoke at three-­thirty in the morning. The night was waning and I felt in need of a bath. My confining clothes had left imprints on my sticky skin. I stretched some, then drew a hot tub and soaked a long time while I pondered. I remembered little of my meeting with Her. I knew only the feelings.

I watched the bath water lap at the edges of my body as I examined the feelings, pulling up one after another. The most potent came first. It centered in my solar plexus, it jittered in my stomach and at the bottom of my throat. I recognized it as something secret, something fun, something just a tad naughty, something not to tell our parents, but to giggle over in our bedrooms, with the doors closed and the lights out. At night.