I know that this is how I always am. We learn about ourselves late at night, when we can't sleep and the room is dark. I have learned, for example, that if my wife became disabled, I would not leave her, but I would be unfaithful to her. I could not disown my responsibility to her, but I could not assume any of her handicap either. My wife knows this about me.
Selfishness is a hard secret to keep.
Colleen did not attend any more Friday-night bar sessions, and I did not tell anyone what had happened to her, even on the evenings when I had way too much to drink. Nobody ever whispered it to me, so I guessed that she had never again divulged this information. My plan, to simply retreat, had been successful. We said hello to each other once in a while, and that's all. In the silence of my office I felt that I had abandoned her, that I had behaved essentially as I always did.