They are part of the image of myself I see, don’t know what I’ll do when they finally wear out. I’m afraid I can’t get another pair like these...anywhere. Apartment number sixty-eight. I look at it and smile. Mom had said she had dodged a bullet with that. I knock. Mom is in sweat pants, socks, and a beige T-shirt when she opens the door. It’s a look I know well. She looks like a comfortable piece of furniture. She smiles seeing it’s me. ‘Come on in. Don’t look at the mess, I’m still unpacking.’. Loved me to the point of idolatry; to the point of worship. I think I was more flattered than anything. Flattered even unto blindness, as the case turned out. It really, honestly never even dawned on me that her love for me was not true (well, not truly her own idea, at any rate), until I read her diary almost a month later. She had insinuated in her text that she thought her love for me had begun the moment she'd set eyes on me. "The way it always was," she'd written, "and the way it always. .."He had not showed any reluctance yet and having been outwitted twice hewas now in a car full of women. Furthermore he was the only one wearinglip gloss and mascara!At this point she "accidentally" sprayed him with a bit of her perfume."Hey what was that for?" Sorry it was an accident! But you have to admit it isn't out of placewith your lippy and mascara," she teased. "Anyway no-one will notice.Besides you are in a car full of women and it is only normal that youcome out smelling like one. We awoke rather late on Saturday morning, the 23rd of January.“We need to shower,” Jill told me on sitting up. The room was warm now, as the heat had come on early that morning. We showered and took care of our morning business before Jill went to make breakfast and I shaved. We had both donned our traveling clothes.Following a breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and bacon with orange juice, toast, and some fair Apple Butter that I had found in a store here, we checked that we had packed everything.