Being selfless is not that different from being brave. It is when you are selfless that you are the bravest.

Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.

I can’t answer either question. But the look she gives me reminds me of the look in the attack dog’s eyes in the aptitude test – a vicious, predatory stare. She wants to rip me to pieces. I can’t lie down in submission now. I have become an attack dog too.

Which means that in order to defeat her, I have to think of a way to defeat myself. And how can I be a better fighter than myself, if she knows the same strategies I know, and is exactly as resourceful and clever as I am?

Eyes open, then," I say, tapping the skin between my eyebrows. I don’t really need her eyes to be on mine, but I feel better when they are.

Maybe forgiveness is just the continual pushing aside of bitter memories, until time dulls the hurt and anger, and the wrong is forgotten.

I'm sick of doing bad things and liking it and then wondering what's wrong with me. I want it to be over. I want to start again.