I've never really thought about my life before. Never gone deeper than the most off-hand, cursory examination. I mean really, what was the point? When you're happy you're happy, and when you're sad you're sad. Analyzing it just seemed like a waste of my time. Besides, that's what I paid my shrink for.

But now, lying in bed, with Ryan sleeping peacefully and seemingly untroubled beside me, I feel like now is the time to venture into that uncharted territory of self-introspection.

I remember in my first year of college I had to do a case study for my sociology class on nature versus nurture. The whole premise of the assignment had made me vaguely uneasy, for reasons that, predictably, I hadn't delved too deeply into. I put it off until two days before it was due, and then stayed up late into the night ending up with a half-assed, bullshitting report that had earned me a B. Mission accomplished, I had erased it from my mind and hadn't thought of it since.

I think I know what bothered me about it. The fact that my life could have been used as exhibit A in that debate had disturbed me.

An only child, whose parents shared an openly acrimonious and hostile relationship. A big house, but devoid of any personality and warmth whatsoever. I had been given so much, much more than many people will ever have the chance to experience in a lifetime. But it's all perspective. Everyone else I knew had just as much.

When I young, I had been something of an outcast. I wanted to have friends, and it showed. I imagine my pathetic desperation and unwillingness to share anything was a major turn off to the other children. As a child, I lacked certain, shall we say, essential social skills. But as we got older, my friendship became highly sought-after, as the others, urged on by their parents, vied for my affection and attention. I was, after all, a Greenlee-Smythe. At first I had been thankful, grateful to have girls to shop with and boys to kiss, but eventually I just accepted my popularity as an immovable fact. I didn't have to be nice to people. They had to be nice to me.

At home, however, it was a different story. I walked on eggshells around my mother, who always had a cutting remark at hand. The clothes that I wore were never met with her approval, same with the boys I brought home. And girlfriends? They were to be neither seen nor heard. In my opinion, the day I receive my mother's approval is the day that I have achieved utter perfection. And I'm still trying, still waiting.

Despite her criticisms, my mother at least showed an interest in my existence. It seemed as though most of the time Daddy didn't even know he had a daughter. Well, now that I know the whole truth, this has begun to make a little more sense to me. But when I think back to the things I did, the way I acted, just to get him to notice me or acknowledge me, I feel sad. Because there was nothing I could do. He had never loved me, would never love me.

At first I was good. I was clean. I never begged to go to the movies or to go to the park. I tried my hardest not to be an inconvenience. My masters were my parents, and I was their pathetic dog, always eager to please. When my parents took vacations I never asked them to stay, never asked to go along. I worked hard at school, and I always bagged straight A's. However, my academic achievements were of no social importance to my mother, and I doubt Daddy had ever given them even the quickest glance, or the most fleeting thought.

Around the time I started at Windsor Academy when I was thirteen I realized that it wasn't working. So I started going out more, sometimes not coming home until three, four in the morning. Our maid, Pilar, would sometimes leave the garden doors open. But if they weren't, I would pass out in one of our patio lounge chairs, to be woken up by the timed sprinklers at seven. My parents never mentioned my absences, my wet clothes.

They never mentioned the drugs, either. During elementary school someone would always have a joint or some E, but now that we had our own money, our own cars, we could pick up whatever we wanted. This was when, in some small sense, I was grateful for the freedom I was allowed. It helped.

When I was fourteen I ended up in the hospital. And not from what most people would have expected. My boyfriend at the time, William Jay, had sworn to me that there was no way I could get pregnant if I was on the rag. Later I realized it was just because he had run out of condoms and didn't want to go out and pick some up. Regardless, my doctor thought it necessary to call my parents after I told him, and as I waited at his office, I was filled with a kind of gleeful dread. He wasn't going to ignore this. He couldn't.

But it was my mother who showed up, lips pressed together grimly. She didn't look at me but instead conversed briefly and quietly with the doctor. One week later I got the abortion. And my father never knew.

Drats. Foiled again.

When I was sixteen I overdosed and when I came home from the hospital, I witnessed an argument between my parents, although they weren't aware I was within earshot. Or maybe they were. I actually don't think they cared too much.

"Roger, she has to go away." My mother was matter of fact.

"Don't you think you're being a bitrash?" Daddy was perusing a men's magazine, his eyes and mind trained firmly on whatever was on the page in front of him. My mother snorted.

"Rash? I think it would be quite prudent. She's out of control. Do you have any idea how this reflects on us? Daddy is beside himself."

"Listen Mary, if Woodruff is so upset, maybe he can pay for her stay at the BFC. But I'm just not budgeting that sort of extravagance." I thought this was my dad's gruff way of telling my mother that he would miss me if I went away. Teenage naivety strikes again. "Mary, you have your job, and I have mine. And I can't do mine when yours is constantly interfering. So Keep Greenlee out of my goddamned hair!"

That had been a familiar chorus over the years.

When I was eighteen and leaving for college, Daddy was nowhere to be found. He had been on his annual Boy's Weekend doing god knows what. And it would be another year and a half until I would see him again.

I only managed to get through one year of school before I went to live with my grandparents. I had realized that I couldn't stay in California anymore. I wanted to take a break, to clean up a little. And Grandaddy and I had always had a special bond.

And that's when I met Ryan.

I guess it had been lust at first site. I knew what I liked. But beyond his looks he always had this overwhelming aura of security. Like nothing could happen as long as he was there. After the upheaval I had experienced that year, he seemed like the answer to all my troubles. I ingratiated myself with him, trying to change into the kind of person he would be interested in. I cleaned up my system, knowing that he wouldn't approve. And I was partially successful, as he was interested, but only in my body, only in sex. He made it clear that I wasn't needed in any other facet of his life. I was banished, excluded. It was nursery school all over again. Well, except for the sex part, of course.

And then Leo had come into my life.

Leo was the most amazing person I have ever met, will ever meet. It was as if God had been listening when I used to pray for the perfect boyfriend, the man who would sweep me off my feet and take me away from everything that was wrong in my life. Because Leo had been everything I had ever wanted and more. Of course, it had taken me awhile to admit that to myself, but, subconsciously, I had known. I had always known.

But David had scared me. In fact, I found Leo's whole family to be slightly on the sinister side. For a long time I had thought David to be some sort of insane, mad scientist, intent on mass, worldwide destruction. Telling him this years later had caused him to laugh so hard that he had been left doubled over, heaving, tears of mirth running down his face. But what was I supposed to think? He had done some evil things. Like trying to kill Adam Chandler. And drugging a yacht full of people. My criminal record thanks him for that one. Not to mention his bothersome habit of blackmailing people. But through Leo, I had begun to see a different side of David. The side that was sometimes nice to people.

Not that I didn't like the other one.

Thinking about David makes my head hurt. My feelings for him are complicated and disorganized. Mostly because I haven't been honest. Not to him, and not to myself.

Okay, I'm trying to be introspective. So I ignore the frenetic whirling of my thoughts and close my eyes, trying desperately to pin them down. I can do this. I'm going to do this.

David is sexy.

There! That was one thought. One that I hadn't allowed myself to admit until now. The guilt starts to rush in but I remind myself that I find plenty other men to be sexy. Like Pablo. Like Ryan.

David was passionate. Okay, I seemed to be a little hung up on the whole new sex aspect of our relationship. The aspect that was not going to be pursued in any shape, way, or form ever again. So try again, Greenlee.

I'd like to say that David makes me feel safe and secure, much in the same way that Ryan does. But I can't. Because sometimes when I'm with David, he frightens me. And sometimes, I frighten myself.

I remember him saying, as he ran his fingers over my breasts, over my torso, feeling me tremble beneath him.

Are you afraid of me Greenlee?

I stilled his hand then, brought his fingers to my mouth, kissed them. And the only answer had been inside my mind.

No David...I'm just scared of these feelings...

Ryan stirred, rubbing his face into his pillow.

I don't want to be here when he wakes up. But I need to be. He's my husband. I'm his wife. We have to be here for each other.

I slept with Ryan to forget. To forget about the fact that I slept with David. To forget about the packet of blow inside my jewelry box. To forget about how I had made things worse than ever before. As if sex with Ryan would erase the fact that I was an adulteress, a coke-fiend, and, possibly the worst of them all, unemployed.

Frustratingly, it hadn't worked. And now I had to deal with the consequences.

Or I could just continue on as if everything was situation normal.

The funny thing was, it wasn't really even that far off.