anew over and over she had

given herself to love with a sense of hunger that had shocked and then bewildered

her more experienced lover Anne with its pure purely emotional

innocence of such things.

Later the light she had lived by

burned her, bruised her deeply;

the shock of it went too deep to hurt her with more than the unfeeling knowledge that she was in pain acute pain! Betrayed; brutally used and betrayed.

Anne simply couldn't care less after it was over and was frankly annoyed at her unrealistic feelings in the matter but consoled herself that she would learn sooner or later we all have to grow up and they would probably be friends again when Natalie had come to take things less seriously. It was always rather amusing, and frightening, to watch the younger ones learning to laugh at love:

the smart ones learned how to smother heartbreak

and not show their true feelings. It was

all part of the game. The Natalies

soon learned.

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But how to face the blind days and groping nights with terror always in the heart, or the enigma of her own innocent complicity in the inexplicable strange and

aching infinite sweetness of her suffering? She had loved Anne,

had wanted Anne; had given herself to Anne! How could she deny that? or say that now she hated Anne or in any way loved her less?

But love is not a snap judgment

that comes and goes

and so Natalie longed for Anne and despised her and herself for loving her and despising her.

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