He smiled, and then we hugged in this awkward way where we didn’t know what to do with our arms, with bodies that had once come together with ease. “Bye, now,” I said, and slid into the driver’s seat. I waited and allowed him to drive out first because my hands were shaking.

Excerpt from Lillian Ashford’s Journal
New Year’s Eve 1961
Twenty-one Years Old

It is when I return home that the facts of His betrayal begin to worm their way into my soul like maggots eating away at my belief. I don’t believe Him. I am frantic. He is gone and being without Him hurts all the way to the inside of my bones. How does someone not DO something when they hurt this way?

How does a broken heart wait for the man who broke it?

My belief in Him turned to doubt and then the doubt to anger and the anger to despair. I told myself that I would never again be the girl who believes in love when it isn’t there. I will never again be fooled. Never, ever again.

This is what I believed: that His love was tepid water compared to my scalding need and desire.

I decided that I would love someone safe who would love me back and not love anyone else.

A thing inside me closed. I almost heard it: a click like a lock. Then after that vow, after that promise and shutting off of my desperation, came the need to show Him how this feels; how it is and how it feels to know I am loved by another.

Last week at the Bradfords’ Christmas party I found the chance: Redmond Eddington, who has been flirting with me for over a year, found me alone in the dining room. I moved, took his hand, and whispered in his ear that we should go for a nice walk outside, be alone for a while. This seduction in his Ford was quick and a little sad. After a girl knows what it is like to really make love, anything else is … empty.

Now it wasn’t that it was bad or even unpleasant, just hollow. If I looked at him just right, it could be Him, I could pretend it was Him. But that wasn’t what mattered to me. What mattered was that He would know, really know, where I was and what I’d been doing. Redmond and I returned to the party, holding hands, smiling in that way.

But this lovemaking had nothing to do with love, and everything to do with getting even. There was no victory in this. I hate myself for what I did. I hate that I slept with a man I don’t love. I hate all of it.