I could kill every spider in her home, cut the thorns off every rosebush she might one day touch, block every speeding car that got within a mile of her, but there was no task I could perform that would make me something other than what I was. I stared at my white, stone-like hand – so grotesquely inhuman – and despaired. I could not hope to compete against the human boys, whether these specific boys appealed to her or not.