More than anything, I needed to know why this had happened, what I had done. These were questions that would never be answered, and so they just rolled around in my head like clothes in a dryer at the laundromat, endlessly turning, different aspects and shades, but always the same questions. Despite all that had happened, I knew that if he were to show up at any given moment, I would fly into his arms. So I couldn't understand why it was so easy for him to shut me out of his heart so easily, so quickly, and marry someone else without even telling me first. I tried to picture what his wife Linda might look like. The whole thing was just incomprehensible to me, and as hard as I tried, I just couldn't sort it out. Nothing made sense, and nothing anyone said to me helped it make sense. I wished he could have explained it to me, so I could move on, or try to, but now, married, expecting a baby....of course, he couldn't. I was the spurned fiancee, covered in shame and shadows, while he walked happily in the sunlight with her, under skies the color of his eyes.

My family said that what I had experienced wasn't love. I'd only had an infatuation, a crush. This just hurt me more. Their attempts to minimize and downgrade my feeling did nothing to diminish the amount of pain I was in. I knew what crushes were, but I loved Daniel with my whole heart, and I hurt with my whole heart, too. I had always been ashamed to cry in public, to show my feelings at all, but I was so devastated that I didn't even care anymore. Bloody scabs covered my head, puffy eyes, hair that hadn't been brushed for days or more, dried tears on my face with a constant trickle running down my jawline....I never looked in the mirror anymore, but I just didn't care. Nothing interested me. There was only pain and numbness, deadness, that white/gray haze that enveloped me when I thought I would go mad from the intensity of the hurt. Time held no meaning, routines went ignored and neglected. There was no solace, no comfort, no friendship. Nothing. Just pain.

People came and went in our household like actors on a stage. Mom's opinionated, know it all friend, Dona, who acted like she was an expert on Judaism and everything else. Dona's friend, Jaylene, who was actually Jewish and Buddhist and smelled like goats. Actually, she stank like goats. Her husband looked a lot like my uncle Space, with long black wavy hair and a thick, out of control beard to match. Hippies with goats and two kids that came over. The kids were nice. Would have been nice if I could have had kids. Something about these hippies possibly trading us goats. Goats.....Snow, Della, Penny. Goats were a pain in the neck. Why would we want more goats, especially if they smelled bad? Whatever.