"How long will I wait?" Amy asked the same reflection that she had consulted three weeks earlier.

She had untangled herself from his web of confusion only to find herself bound to another.  Another, other than he, had found her.  He had seen Amy's image and falsely believed that he perhaps desired her; that he could enrapture her heart and soul, and control her.  What he had really wanted was to live through her, not merely to possess her, but, to become Amy.

"I thought you were like me," Amy screamed through her aching body.  "You understood me and cared for me, but my mind was too strong for you.  You presented me with an ethereal mirage that I perceived to be real.  You are real, yet you hide yourself.  You long to be with others of your kind."

"I am sorry Amy.  You are beautiful but I cannot be with you. I cannot hold you any longer because you deserve to be free; it would hurt me to hold you in my grasp when I cannot give you myself.  You are a girl Amy and I do not belong."

"You have already hurt me.  My wounds have opened.  My tears burn into them.  I began to love you.  How can you give me so much and then take it away.  I needed you."

He said no more because there was nothing more to be said.  He had spoken all he could without revealing his true identity, yet he had told her nothing.

Amy felt overwhelmed.  Like a sponge she absorbed all around her.  So much had happened.  She had tried to support all the others from a greater trauma, but it had reversed now.  They propped her up from her fall, but she buckled and staggered from the weight that bore upon her.

She returned to college.  Amy felt waves of anticipation as she waited for his approach.  He came to her and interlocked his glance with hers.  A change had occurred from within but Amy still feared the descent of that which had captured her, holding her prisoner within him.

"It is I, Amy,” he spoke softly to her, cushioning her from any hidden abrasions she may have otherwise detected.