"I felt my heart flutter: Please, God, anything but this.She sounded ever so disappointed as she continued. In fact she soundedas if I had let her do...n. "You know what the children have asked of youand its such a little thing that will cost you nothing, so how can youpossibly refuse them?"I hesitated. "Helena... I... I..." My voice wavered and then died.If she noticed the tears welling up in my eyes, she never mentionedthem.Her voice warmed, and the sadness passed. "It's such a. I looked over at her and said, "This will be the first quality time we've spent alone. Can we talk for a bit?" Of course, sir," she said."You really are getting into this, aren't you?" I asked."Yes, sir," she said."I've already told you that you're the most obedient, but you actually take it to extremes. You do more than you are even asked to. You said that it was your pleasure and duty to make me breakfast, but no one made it your duty. Why do you feel it is your duty?" My duty is to do. I had candles and sachet all around trying to make our dorm room romantic and I don't think he noticed at all. He just wanted me which, of course, is every girl's ultimate compliment. The sex was good, but I was slowly falling in love so it seemed magical and wonderful. It did become just that as we got to know each other and has been that way ever since. Early on in our dating, we often went out with his best friend from high school, Todd, also a mechanical engineering major and his. "Kids, huh?"Rachel laughed, too. "I guess we did our share of idiotic things whenwe were young."Amanda smiled ruefully. "I guess. And we've got the scars to prove it,too."Rachel glanced at her friend and fellow alcoholic. "We do at that.Everybody suffers through some kind of crisis about that age."Amanda didn't say anything for a bit; traffic on Newport between Harborand Seventeenth swirled in a chaos of streets joining at odd angles andpeople trying to get where they wanted to go without.