There once was someone I loved very much. I don't know why I did. We weren't close, hell, I barely knew her. But there was something in her...something cracked and fragile and beautiful, so, somehow... somewhere there was an invisible place where we could meet, a place we could understand each other without words. I felt I had known her all my life.

One night, she...offered to share my bed. It would have made me happy for a time, but all I could say was, "That would be inappropriate." The matter was closed.

I didn't understand why I turned her down at first. But, as some of you know, I read people pretty well. I searched out the puzzle pieces of our conversations and put together an ugly picture. Someone, or maybe a group of someones, had broken that fragile and beautiful thing inside her when she was young. The two things I realized at that time were that 1) she was looking for someone to heal her and 2) I would never be that person, no matter how much I wanted to be.

I dreamt of her just now, lying naked on the floor, half-covered with a blanket, inviting. So I forced myself to wake up. It would have been wrong.