Epilogue: A guilty conscience.

I feel like the tendency to hide something from one’s past is an acknowledgement of guilt; at the very least, it is a way of shielding one’s self from a societal backlash. Either way — be it morality or society — the deviant is hunted. Society’s best hunters are the ones they inculcate within you. Your impulse to take from Tina, to use Tina, has brought you to a state of internal exile.

You are not a monster. The beast constantly acts on impulses without remorse. But you are conflicted about what you’ve done, and there is nothing more human than that.