We stand a professional distance apart, as if I can’t feel his pain screaming in my head. Mine amplifies his; they share a joint sound—that of glass breaking—until they swell to a crescendo that deafens.

More than most, I know the pain of surviving.

What you said about the sweetest pain? That fits us.

So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be
magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.

When a person screams in pain, the actual pain is only half the noise they make. The other half is the terror at being forced to accept that they exist.

I open the book and turn to the next page. Day three.

I started screaming today.

And those four words hit me harder than the worst kind of physical pain.