But the guilt? It never leaves. It hangs around like a bad smell that no amount of bleach can eliminate. You can get yourself a new life, get yourself a new love, go to jail for the terrible thing you helped do … but the guilt is still there, stinking like an invisible piece of rotting garbage underneath your bed that won’t go away no matter how many attempts you make to clean it. Because that smell—of rotting flesh, of rotting soul—is you.
