No, she thought, this can’t happen. She knew the cost of getting involved with anyone. She couldn’t risk it. She had given up everything last time... If he found her here, or found Gabe even touching her…she pushed those thoughts aside. He won’t find out, she thought, because I’ve been so careful all these years. She looked around and forced a laugh as the guys continued their play. Gabe gazed at her, a strange look in his eyes. She quickly looked away and joined in the play-fight. She had to. She made me join the Music Club, the Spanish Club and the Chess Club. She absolutely refused to let me get a part time job after school so I could save up money to buy a car."If you have a car you will just want to go out and run around in it instead of staying home and studying. Plenty of time for that foolishness when you are grown up and on your own."Where was my father when all this stuff was going on? The pussy-whipped bastard sat in his easy chair and said, "Yes dear" and "You are. “Where’s Cathy? She likes you.”“No, she doesn’t.”“How do you know?”“She said she doesn’t like me and that she wants to dance with other people.”I put my hands on my hips and looked around for Cathy among the flock of women in pink dresses dancing in a line. I had specifically chosen her as Toby’s partner because I thought they’d have some chemistry being the same age, both being seniors in high school and into the same silly comic book movies.“I don’t care,” Toby said.“Did she really say that?”. I felt a tingle deep inside of me. As if the empathy I had killed inside me to become what I was screamed from the afterlife. Then I gave in.I untied the black cloth that formed my mask, first the bottom, then the top. Then Moraine could see the face of a thirty-year-old man, absolutely pale, with pitch black straight hair uncut and wild, the long and thin scar on the right side of my face, from up the cheekbone to the edge of my chin.Her eyes widened. I always got that reaction, as I knew I.