She's visiting her family in Arizona while our office is closed for the Christmas/New Year's break. We've had lunch together a few times. And there have been evening excursions with a few other co-workers.

She let me kiss her on the cheek a couple nights before the office closed. I was high for many hours afterward, like licking a rose coated with LSD.

She keeps asking me about what I do during my evenings away from work. I just mention something vague about "projects" or "paperwork" and then change the subject. I really don't want to talk about the car wrecks and airline disasters and my spectacular lack of success despite the years and years of my stubborn, if not delusional, persistance.

I adore her. But I'm also afraid of her. I fear becoming attached to her and then watching her flee. And I fear all the lights and mirrors humans carry within them. I'm about as comfortable as I'll ever be with self-examination in the distortion of my own mirrors. But I'm scared as hell to see myself the way others see me. Or to have them see me the way I appear when all this self-generated fog has burned away.