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May is thrown off-guard when Eddie arrives out of the blue and rekindles all of her recently subsiding emotions for him. She is madly in love with Eddie but it is a painful, confusing, consuming love. Her love for him does not fit into her life and the realistic issues that she must address to survive. May craves stability, affection, self-empowerment and independence. Eddie is contrary to any of these desires and in fact, prevents them from existing in May's life. She is torn between the fantasy and memory of their love and the reality and pain of the day-to-day struggle they encounter being together. Her love for Eddie takes May over so completely that it is like a sickness or madness. She cannot focus on anything else but the two of them and they way they have wronged each other and how strong they feel for each other when Eddie is around. When Eddie leaves, the void is so great that it is almost not worth the time he is present. May feels similarly to the way her mother felt about the Old Man. May's mother was so passionate about him that she became extremely depressed whenever he left.

May and Eddie see their past from different points of view. May sees the story of their past differently than Eddie because her mother was the one who the Old Man was cheating on with Eddie's mother. Her mother was the secret who was always left behind. This influenced May in subtle but definite ways and now influences her in her feelings for Eddie who abandons her much like the Old Man once abandoned her mother. Eddie does not see the situation of abandonment male abandonment from the same perspective as May. Because of this disparity, they interpret the status of their present situation and relationship from different, often conflicting vantage points. Though Eddie and May did not know they were related, May feels ashamed about their relationship. It continued after Eddie and May knew about their blood relation to one another. May attempts to deny and ignore the troubling familial aspect of their relationship. Eddie on the other hand seems to have accepted this problem. Making Eddie leave would allow May to continue to get over Eddie and to shut away the shame of their incest.

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