I didn't hate Talbot McCoy. I was in love with him! I had been in love with him since the first day of Art class our junior year of high school! My own insecurities had blinded me. I knew Mom and Dad loved me, but I had never really understood why my birth parents hadn't. I had always felt that there must be something in me, some flaw, some hidden defect, that had made my birth mother so disgusted with me that she gave me up. All that hurt had drawn me up inside a hard shell that had allowed only Mom and Dad inside. I was afraid to let anyone close enough to see the real me. I knew they would see what my birth parents had seen, that I was deeply flawed and they would be disgusted with me.
The insight staggered me to my core. Illusions I had sheltered myself with for years were sloughing o
