I lay in bed for hours unable to sleep—not just because I had already slept so late, but because my mind was too full. I thought mostly about the horror Leszek had seen in his life. I realized that in some ways the atrocities of the Holocaust had become cinema to me: a mental library of documentaries, movies, and books I had experienced growing up, erroneously believing that I knew something about the horror. I had never met anyone who had lived through it. It was the difference between reading a travelogue and talking to a native.

This was something I could never understand: how could a person be so inhumane to others? I put myself in that equation. Had I been a German soldier, would I have obeyed orders? Statistically speaking, I likely would have. What if I had been in Leszek’s position? Would I have attempted an escape or accepted my death? And wasn’t that question, in some ways, the very question I was facing right now?

In those dark, quiet hours, I found the truth of Leszek’s words. What he said was true—whether I had intended to or not, I had assigned a portion of my future to Kyle. I had deeded him a continual stake in my life—recurring at consistent intervals like a regularly scheduled program in the television network of my mind. As an advertiser, this was something I understood. We paid money to media to lease space in their viewers’ minds. That’s what I had given Kyle, a television series in my mind, a daily drama I visited, to create pain and hate and justification and … Then I saw it. Could it be that I held on to my hate and unforgiveness because I wanted to? That hate was as strong a lust as sex or violence? That I had some carnal desire to beat him mercilessly every day in the boxing ring of my mind? And how long would this show go on before I canceled it? For the rest of my days?

It could. I had met people who held grudges as their most prized possessions, clinging to bitterness and resentment even after the focus of their hatred was dead and buried.

That idea seemed absurd. If my life was, as my father always said, the sum total of my thoughts, then what would such a course of thought make of my life? And was I willing to give that away? No. I wanted to own my thoughts. I wanted to reclaim my mind. I wanted my time back. I wanted to forgive.

I don’t know what time I eventually fell asleep, but I woke the next morning around ten. It was light out, so I knew, this time, that it was morning. I didn’t feel dizzy. Actually, except for being off schedule, I felt normal. I lay in bed for a few minutes, revisiting the previous night’s thoughts.