"The hate keeps me warm," she said.
"Wow."
She shrugged.
"That's a pretty expensive fuel, isn't it?"
"I have it in abundant supply."
"But think about the pollution," he said. "What it doesn't consume, it destroys."
"I'd be destroyed without it."
"Wow."
"Yeah. Wow."
"But really. Is life so cold that you need something like hate to keep you warm? What would happen if you didn't have the hate?"
"Maybe 'keeping me warm' isn't the best way to put it. It keeps me strong. It pushes away people who completely fail me. It protects me when nothing else will." She smiled. "It'll probably protect me from you, eventually."
"But what if you let it go?" he said.
"I've thought about that. A lot."
"So? What would happen?"
"What if you woke up, and your house was on fire? You only had a minute and half before the flames swept in and burned you alive. What if you woke up with those 90 seconds to live, and you realized that you were paralyzed from the waist down? How would that feel?"
He contemplated. "Total panic. Terror and confusion. Probably utter madness. You would go insane."
"You wouldn't make it out paralyzed, right? You wouldn't make it out without your legs."
"No."
"The hate is my legs. It gets me out."
He sat back.
She looked down at her hands. She felt his eyes. He didn't speak.
"But I don't want it anymore," she said. "It only makes it worse." She sighed a shaky sigh. "I wish I knew how to let it go."
