Max closes his eyes, unable to bear both seeing and hearing Edgar's anguish. Is this wrong? Is he wrong for feeling this way? Doubt nips at his heels, and he can distantly feel himself trembling as if he's watching it from outside his own body.

"I know that." The trembling hardens into something else, something like anger but more desperate. "I'm not stupid! Just because I forgive him doesn't mean it didn't happen! But I don't want to spend the rest of my life being angry and scared. He's here. I'm here. We spent seven years together. It wasn't all bad and I don't want it to mean nothing. Why can't anyone understand? My life with him wasn't just nothing."