Words of “How? “It can’t be!” “This is impossible!” flowed from her mouth. She froze in place not knowing what to do. Actually how could a...yone know what to do in a situation like this?About that time Michael’s alcohol fueled brain made the realization that his former best friend crashed his Halloween Bash. His eyes matched those of my former wife. However he was not stricken with the inability to act. Thinking quick on his feet was something I always admired about him. Ever since grade school. She just wanted to get home, to get home and take a shower. To wash the evidence of her rape off of her. The walk back to her dorm was the longest of her life. She could feel the passers-by’s eyes on her, she felt like somehow they knew. ‘Lanie, where have you been?’ Poppy asked as she opened the door. ‘We’ve been worried sick…’ and she trailed off as she saw the look on Melanie’s face. ‘Gee Melanie, what happened?’ she asked worriedly. Melanie just pushed past her, heading for the bathroom.. I rubbed his shoulder and he flinched away from me."There's stuff I wanna tell you," His voice was low, and his ice blue eyes, made brighter by the snow, pierced me once again, "But I can't. It ... just give me time OK?"I nodded."Sure," I scoffed my biscotti, "Let's go build a snowman." When he frowned I chuckled, "Hey, I did your running thing, now you gotta come be stupid with me."Snow didn't last and we were back at school all too soon. And everything had changed again. Jesse and I talked.. For the Southern Belles, anyway.Behind us the bands were still playing and the floats presumably stillrolling past the spectators, but as we went under the traffic light atthe intersection of 20th and Main, Gretchen was standing in front of thepolice cars blocking the end of the parade route, frantically waving herarms, directing us over to the park off to the left.Our carefully assembled, color-coordinated formation began to fall apartas we turned. Some of the girls sighed with relief,.