And though I wasn’t screaming anymore, my whole body was trembling, and I closed and reopened my eyes to see if I could make him disappear. I couldn’t. And now he was sitting on my bed and telling me that I would have been charged with attempted murder if Simon hadn’t said that he broke into my apartment and startled me, and if the Crown Attorney hadn’t been friends with my late father, and if I hadn’t been so “f****d in the head”—which were the exact words he used to describe me—and which of course I agreed with.
“Attempted murder,” I remember saying.
“Attempted murder,” he repeated.
I think I said, “Attempted murder” two more times and then I said, “That’s very good news. Thank you.”
I reached out to shake his hand, but he refused and walked away.
* * *
I would learn much later, lo
