faint wind.

I laughed again, a soft girlish sound that brought discomfort to the boy's face before me.

"Your mother says. Your father says. Don't you ever say anything for yourself, Bob?"

"Look, Rosalie, I'm sorry. Maybe I just don't think the way you do. My father says sex at our age is just another escape from reality. You've got to face yourself as an adult first. He—"

"Your father is a bigger nincompoop than you are!" I shouted at him. "I thought you said you loved me. I thought you had some feelings buried under that so-called rational mind of yours! Or does your father say you're too young to love somebody?"

He tried to say something, but I was right. He pressed his lips together and looked away. I was almost enjoying it now; with deliberate coolness I buttoned up my tunic, feeling the soft fibers on my skin.

"How long does it take to love somebody?" I said, but my voice was beginning to tremble. I turned away from his still figure in the night, and began the slow walk back along the path to the house. Tears stung my eyes, and spilled onto my cheeks; I started to run through the dark.

I slammed the door when I ran in, and went directly to my room. At one end of it was a small studio, where an easel was lit coldly by a fluorescent light. Almost blindly I began beating my fists on the still-wet canvas, blurring and then ripping the nearly finished portrait of a young man.

I was crying quietly when the low, calm voice stopped me on the street.

"Just a moment, Miss."

I felt the sudden skip in my heart which signaled danger, and when I turned I saw the light green uniform of a proctor in the vague street light. My eyes were still blurred with tears. I couldn't make out his face.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you a few questions."

Shielding my face from the light, I tried to make my voice calm. I hoped my homesick tears were hidden, that my cheeks wouldn't glisten in the light. I wanted very badly for him not to see I had been crying.

"Yes?"

"I'll have to know why you're out on the streets at this time of the morning," the proctor said. "There's a curfew, you know. Unless you can show cause...."

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