"I... I killed a man." "Was it in Reno?" he asked. "Was it just to watch him die?" He was trying to hold back a smile.

"No, it.... Look, you want to share our deepest secrets, I'm doing that. Are you going to listen?"

He stifled his giggles. "You're right, sorry." He cleared his throat. "Go ahead."

"It was here in town. I snuck out one night, with a kitchen knife. I stole Dad's gun, too, just in case, but I didn't need it. I went to one of those shopfronts where homeless sleep, and stabbed one of them. He didn't move at first, and I thought maybe I'd killed him already, and then he fought like a madman. Or a dying man, I guess. The fight was a blur, but I eventually got the knife in his eye. Then he stopped moving for sure. I was ten."

Over the last thirty seconds, his face had gone slack.

"Say something," she murmured.

"If you don't like what I say, are you going to kill me, too?"

"God, no," she said, "I didn't kill him because of anything—"

"That's worse," he shouted. "I need... to think."

The door slammed behind him.