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"Because I liked you. I liked you very much. You're the first girl I felt comfortable being with, talking to."

"Liked me?" I shook my head. "How does that explain why you lied to me?"

"I saw how important it was to you for me to be like you. You had the same distrust of people I did. When you called us birds of a feather, I wanted to keep that special relationship. I wanted to hold onto that idea about us helping each other, being there for each other. We said so many things like that to each other.

"Besides, it wasn't all a lie. I never stopped resenting my father for deserting us. I did believe that he didn't want the responsibility of having a family."

"He was an alcoholic, wasn't he?"

"Yes, and I did like drinking, too. My mother doesn't know to this day how much I did drink when I could. Remember I told you about my finding his stash of whiskey in our basement?"

"That didn't mean you'd be like him, Duncan."

"It seemed to me I would. I have no real friends and I didn't pine over it. I know everyone at school thinks

I'm weird and I let them think it, maybe encouraged it. When you told me that same sort of thing had happened to you, I thought again that you liked me because I was like you, because we were experiencing the same sort of things."

"But you had me believing that your mother thought I was evil. She was just worrying about you the way any parent would worry about her child. Why did you pretend to be afraid of sinning with me, treating a kiss like a blasphemy or something?"

/> "I was shy," he said sharply. "I was never that close to any girl. You seemed so much more sophisticated. I didn't want to look so innocent, inexperienced."

"You answered the phone that time and pretended you were your mother, didn't you? You were the one who called me Satan, not her."

"It was all part of it," he said. "I'm sorry I did that, but I thought if you continued to pity me, you might grow more fond of me, maybe even fall in love with me."

"Real love doesn't come out of pity, Duncan. Sympathy isn't love. Compassion isn't the kind of love you wanted to have with me. It's not enough. If that's all you have with someone, then when he or she gets better, you move on. There's no commitment, no more reason to care."

"You're right. I'm sorry," he said. "If you came for an apology, you have it."

He turned away again.

"I didn't come for an apology, Duncan. I came for understanding. Yes, I was upset when I visited with your mother and learned the truth. No one likes to be duped, Duncan. I felt betrayed."

He nodded, his face turned away from me, then slowly turned hack.

"I knew you would. I figured you would hate me now, think I was as weird as everyone else thinks, and you wouldn't want to have anything more to do with me."

"Don't tell me that was why you tried to drown yourself in the river," I said. "Don't lie there and tell me I'm indirectly responsible. You know how I feel about that, how I still feel about it."

"It was a part of it, I guess, another nail in my coffin, but not your fault, no. I was just tired of it, and I didn't want to face you afterward."

"Now you are facing me," I said, "and being honest, too. Would you rather be dead?"

"I don't know. I haven't had the chance to com pare."

"Yeah, well I can tell you this, Duncan, my uncle's great pasta sauce is not being served in cemeteries." He laughed again.

"Ouch, but a good ouch," he said.

"Look," I said. "I'm not going to say I wasn't very upset with you, but when I 'hear your reason for doing all that, I'm also happy, even flattered, you would go to such extremes to win my favor."

"You are?"

"Yes, but I still think you're weird," I said.

He nodded. "You think I'm weird. Believe me, when what I did gets out, it's going to be even worse for me around here."

"So? Are you running for class president?"