She?sas much a part of the past as the Richard who adored his toy London bus,the Richard who wrote execrable love poems to Trisha Hodgson knowing that...f they should ever fall into her hands he wouldn?t dare set foot outsidethe house again, the Richard who took to the student lifestyle like akoala to a eucalyptus grove, his prowess on the dartboard, the pinballmachine and the bar billiards table far outshining his ability to completeessays on time, and the Richard who was in danger of frittering. Initially, there was nothing between us. But with time, she actually went easy on me. Soon she started calling me for lunch, coffee and other occasions to her house. Once my parents were out of station, and she called me for dinner at her place since she knew about this as well. Those were the cool December days. After a lot of topics, she asked me if I had any girlfriends to which I replied Yes. The next question was, if I ever had sex, which was a NO. She then started telling me how lonely. It was true that Williams eagerness was uncontrollable when it came to games. Usually, when William had a new game he wanted to show John, hed already played enough of it that when they played together, John would always lose because William would already have experience playing it. Yeah well&hellip,I wanted to play it when you got here, so there, William said this with a little note of anxiety on his face. He shifted uncomfortably in his computer chair and added, I wanted you to see it and it. . I don't think I'd have survived if it weren't for Tina. I felt so- so- so dirty. And Tina, she pulled me back together and kept me that way when our parents were calling me a liar."Mom and Rachel wandered over at this point and saw us deep in conversation, and no dresses picked out. She cleared her throat meaningfully, and we guiltily went back to looking through the racks.When they stepped away, though, the three of us put our heads together again and Gail said, "It helps... it really helps.