He's right, of course. If ten years haven't faded the memories or the weight of them, then chances are, nothing will, and there sure as hell isn't anything that will alleviate her guilt. She did what she did. She can't take that back. All she can really do is keep trying to live with it, though at least coming out and telling someone, actually owning it, seems to be a step in the right direction. Karen doesn't know whether or not she'll ever tell anyone else. As rocky as tonight has been, it's kind of hard to think past right now anyway, her head fuzzy from crying, her stomach still not quite having settled.

"None of this really covers it, anyway," she says, frowning slightly. It's not like she ever told her story. Some of the speculation came close, but it was all still incomplete at best, no one who'd speak publicly about it knowing how they wound up where they did. "I don't... There's no reason to keep it around here." Getting rid of it isn't the same as burying what truths are enclosed in it. Someone else knows now. Even if it never goes beyond the two of them, that still counts for something.