With so many people cutting paper and curling ribbons, there was a shortage of scissors. As soon as a pair was set down, they were immediately snatched up by someone who had been waiting for his or her turn. Standing at the table with a pile of unwrapped toys, and a roll of red and white striped paper, I watched impatiently for my chance. A pair of scissors clattered on the table, and I reached for them. But someone else was too fast for me. My fingers inadvertently clamped over a male hand that had already grasped the scissors. I looked up into a pair of smiling blue eyes.

"Dibs," the boy said. With his other hand, he flipped the tail of my Santa hat away from my eyes and over my shoulder.

We spent the rest of the night side by side, talking, laughing, and pointing out presents we thought the other would like. He chose a Cabbage Patch doll with curly brown hair for me, and I picked out a model kit of a Star Wars X-wing fighter for him. By the end of the evening, Luke had asked me out on a date.

There were many things to like about Luke. He was average in all the right ways, intelligent but not a geek, athletic but not muscle-bound. He had a nice smile, although it wasn't Hardy's smile. His deep blue eyes didn't have the ice-and-fire brightness of Hardy's, and his dark hair was crisp and wiry, instead of thick and soft like mink fur. Luke also didn't have Hardy's outsized presence or restless spirit. But in other ways they were similar, both tall and physically self-possessed, both uncompromisingly masculine.

It was a time in my life when I was especially vulnerable to male attention. Everyone

else in the small world of Welcome seemed to be paired up. My own mother had been dating more than I had. And here was a boy who resembled Hardy, without the complexity, and he was available.

As Luke and I began to see more of each other, we were accepted as a couple and other boys stopped asking me out. I liked the security of being half of a pair. I liked having someone to walk through the halls with, someone to eat lunch with, someone to take me out for pizza after the Friday-night game.

The first time Luke kissed me, I was disappointed to discover it wasn't anything like Hardy's kisses. He had just brought me back home from a date. Before getting out of the car, he leaned over and pressed his mouth to mine. I returned the pressure, trying to summon a response, but there was no heat or excitement, just the alien moisture of another person's mouth, the slippery probing of a tongue. My brain remained uninvolved from what was happening to my body. Feeling guilty and embarrassed by my own coldness, I tried to make up for it by wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him harder.

As we continued to date, there were more kisses, embraces, tentative explorations. Gradually I learned to stop comparing Luke to Hardy. There was no mysterious magic, no invisible circuitry of sensation and thought between us. Luke was not the kind who thought deeply about things, and he had no interest in the secretive territory of my heart.

At first Mama hadn't approved of my dating a senior, but when she met Luke, she'd been charmed by him. "He seems like a nice boy." she told me afterward. "If you want to date him. I'll allow it as long as you keep to an eleven-thirty curfew."

"Thank you, Mama." I was grateful that she had given her permission, but some inner devil prompted me to say, "He's only one year younger than Hardy, you know."

She understood my unspoken question. "It's not the same."

I knew why she'd said that.

At nineteen, Hardy had already become more of a man than some men ever were. In the absence of a father he'd learned to shoulder the responsibility of a family, providing for his mother and sisters. He'd worked hard to ensure their survival, and his own. Luke, by contrast, was sheltered and coddled, secure in the belief that things would always come easily to him.

If I hadn't known Hardy, it was possible I would have come to care more about Luke. But it was too late for that. My emotions had bent around Hardy like wet-molded leather left to dry and harden in the sun, until any attempt to alter its shape would break it.

One night Luke brought me to a party held at someone's house while their parents were away for the weekend. The place was filled with seniors, and I looked in vain for a familiar face.

The hard blues rock of Stevie Ray Vaughan blasted from outside patio speakers, while plastic cups of orange liquid were handed out to the crowd. Luke brought some to me, advising me with a laugh not to drink it too fast. It tasted like flavored rubbing alcohol. I took the tiniest sips possible, the caustic liquor stinging my lips. While Luke stood talking with his friends, I excused myself by asking where the restroom was.

Gripping the plastic cup, I went into the house and pretended not to notice the couples making out in shadows and corners. I found the guest bathroom, which was miraculously unoccupied, and I poured the drink into the commode.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I decided to take a different route outside. It would be easier, not to mention less embarrassing, to go out the front door and around the side of the house rather than return through the gauntlet of amorous couples. But as I passed the big staircase in the entranceway, I caught sight of a pair of entwined bodies in a shadow.

I felt as if I'd been stabbed through the heart as I recognized Hardy, his arms around a long-limbed blond girl. She was riding one of his thighs, her upper back and shoulders revealed by a black velvet bustier top. One of his fists was closed in her hair, holding it back as he dragged his mouth slowly along the side of her throat.

Pain, desire, jealousy...I hadn't known it was possible to feel so many things so strongly, all at once. It took every ounce of will I possessed to ignore them and keep going. My steps faltered, but I didn't stop. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hardy's head lift. I wanted to die as I realized he'd seen me. My hand shook as I grasped the cold brass doorknob and let myself outside.