"Yeah," she let out a nervous laugh.

“Yeah, I'm fine. Just been a crazy weekend, that's all.”

My mind immediately went over the party and my meeting of Maria.

“Yeah, it was. But we were talking about that party. You wanted to tell me something before we got interrupted. Sorry about that, by the way.

Maria can be a little... overwhelming."

She waved me off and looked away. "No it's alright. I don't even know why I was making such a big deal out of it. You, of all people, would understand."

“Understand what? I'm sorry; my memory's a Little hazy on exactly where we left off. But you said you'd come to a realization that night."

"I did..." Amber's voice trailed off and she looked at me with such a sadness in her eyes, it made me want to reach out and hold her. The radiant blue of her irises were as deep as the ocean, dark and liquid.

But then she blinked and her entire face took on a more serious edge.

"I realized that maybe I'm lesbian, or at least, I'd rather be with girls than guys." Amber said her words shortly and she turned away. I mistook her physical signals for embarrassment. It never occurred to me that she was Lying.

“Hey," I reached out and touched her arm, sending a shiver down her spine.

“It's cool. You were right; I'm the perfect guy to be understanding about it. I'm not going to think badly of you or anything."

“Look, I already admitted E-Beth and I were... experimenting a bit Last year. But at that party, I was with Randall, who is normally the exact kind of guy I would go after." Amber turned and looked at me intently.

“I realized that I was just lying to myself. The upper-crust society matrons gave me these parameters for the ideal man, and I blindly followed them. But he's not the kind of guy I really want to be with."

“You a-," she paused and looked away.

“You know what I mean?"

“I think so. Danielle went through the same thing when she was younger.

She dated the jocks and the popular guys because she thought she was supposed to. But it wasn't how she felt inside." I felt so proud of myself in that moment for being the sensitive, understanding and supportive guy friend.

“Glad someone understands. My mother would kill me if she found out. So

I'm okay, really. You don't have to worry about me. I'll talk to you later, alright?"

FALL QUARTER, JUNIOR YEAR (December 2000)

The last month of the fall quarter flew by. Amber did drop the Art

History class, and with everything else going on in my life I didn't see much of her or E-Beth through to the winter break. I found it just a bit odd. Just when Amber and I were getting to the closest point in our friendship, with open honesty and understanding, all of a sudden I barely ran into her.

But I was a little too busy to find out what was going on. I spent most of the last few weeks studying Like crazy for my finals. My afternoons and dinner times were spent with Kevin and Jen, hanging out with familiar friends. And about half of my evenings were spent romping with my cute Russian nymphomaniac.

Maria was like a kid turned loose in a candy store. She looked in wonder at everything having to do with sex and was eager to sample all that there was to offer. And even with her little sister monopolizing me as often as possible, Nataliya still wanted a little cock on occasion and I never turned her down either.