I just do the best I can under the circumstances.

So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that looked like a whole.

In Anger Management,' he said,'we had to do all this role-playing stuff. You know, to get used to handling things in a less volatile way.' 'You role-played,' I said, trying to picture this. 'I had to. It was court-ordered.

If there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump.

It was great. Freedom even the imagined kind always is.

Then I'd crawl back into bed, smelling her all around me, and tell myself that next time, I would lock that window. But I never did.

I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real.