Now the sign said, "Who are you calling cute?" What the..."The old man frowned. "I thought that little joke could get you out of your funk, Leo, but I...can see that I was wrong. Are you really so certain that you want to kill yourself?" How'd you... and don't point to that sign, old man." All right. We'll dispense with humor. Why _do_ you want to kill yourself?" What've I got to live for? If you really could read minds, you'd know. I lost my job... my future..." He took a breath. "My wife. What,. "He never relaxed until he was with you. He was never comfortable until you were there. It drove me crazy, Bethie. And I'm so sorry."Tears rolled down Bailey's cheeks."I never had a friend like you, Beth," she said. "I never had someone that I could talk to like I could talk to you. I didn't have someone who was willing to tell me I was full of shit sometimes."But I was too blinded by my feelings for R.J. and my own inadequacies to get past that and be a friend back to you. I would like to be. “You know Maria Chin at school?’ she asked.I nodded. The Chin’s owned the Chinese restaurant in town. I had know Maria since kindergarten. She was in my class.“You think she is pretty?” Regina looked at me.“Yeah she is,” I replied. In her adolescence Maria had been a skinny shy kid with big glasses that gave her an owl look. I had noticed the in past year she had started to grow up nicely. She had long black hair that she often wore in a pony tail. I knew a friend of mine had asked her to go to. She squeezed the ball, it was made of rubber. Shrugging she put it on the floor with the blindfold then looked into the box for the other items. These made her frown in greater confusion. The first item was a long metal bar with four rubber hoops attached to it. Two at the ends of the bar and two further in from the end. Their positions along the bar seemed to split it into four equal lengths. Next to the bar were two sets of handcuffs, the cuff part wrapped in a soft material. Below the.