How could she do this to Albie?
What is difficult, if not impossible, to understand, unless you’re in the thick of it yourself, is that she would not be doing this to him. Albie has no place, not so much as a cameo shot, in this picture, in the video that plays in her head. Pain, fixed with laser beam focus on itself, is self-centered, allowing for thoughts only of alleviation. Even the pain of something as common and comprehensible as a toothache, one of those cavities sufficiently deep to expose the nerve endings, a cavity that feels like someone has jammed an ice pick through your eye, shrinks your world into an impenetrable bubble of agony. It hurts, and it hurts, and that, the hurt, is everything. You can’t think about anything except wanting the hurt to go away.