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Show Jit "I guess he believed it." I couldn't stand her.questioning ns any more. "Hell, I know he believed it. But I_ didn't tell him the story -- and not once did I say it was true. He assumed too damned much." "Wasn't that a natural assumption?" "No." 'Tven when you didn't deny it?" "It was a joke. 0,K,,, OyK,, you're right. Why should he ask me if I don't deny it. Sure he'd assume. Except he should have asked me. Oh, I know, I know," I said, stopping her off. "God, I know it's my fault.' When I saw that he believed it I should have . . . But, Kite, god, I couldn't." I told her about my condition at the time, how low I was, how depressed, how I was scorned and cheated at The Castle, and how when the story got believed how everything changed, how I was treated with fairness and respect. My voice was low and shaded darkly, perfectly under control. If it was partly an act, my performance took force from the truth in it: it didn't seem strange to me to feel truthfully an emotion and at the same time know I was acting. I did it all the time on the stage. She was very attentive, a good audience, but I didn't know if I was persuading her or not. "But you're right," I said. "I should have told them it was just a joke." "Well . . . Those are terrible pressures." "But I should have been stronger. Just because they despised me, I should have been stronger. Just because they cheated me and treated me like shit, I should have leveled with them. Maybe I could have taken it." "Chess . . . I didn't mean . . . " "This all sounds so stupidly melodramatic," I laughed bitterly. "But then, you know, when everybody moved out of there, when I was alone . . . " "Chess . . . " "I didn't know it could get to me so much, me nearly dying. But I should have told them, admitted the truth and taken my chances. They'd have probably |