"We'll destroy ourselves from the inside out if we dwell on that part of it, Mary." Johnny understood very much what she was going through on that end of it. He knew that if he'd made her stay, or if he'd told her that he would be the one to leave, none of this would have even happened. He'd run over the scenario again and again and it all chalked up to the same result. If she hadn't left the apartment, she would have been safe. If he had spoken up, if he had gone after her, she wouldn't have had to go through the horrible things that she had.
"It's never going to be okay to either one of us. It's not a comfortable fact, but it is a fact. You have regrets from that night, and so do I. Neither of us is right, neither of us is wrong. But we can't change it. It fucking sucks to have to accept it. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for it, as long as I live. It will always cause an ice cold spike through my heart. I feel the terror of discovering you missing freshly every time I think about it. But I know that if I don't let it sink in that that's the way it went down and there's no changing it, I'm going to be a ruined mess.
"I don't want to be that, because I have you here and now. You've been through hell, but you're alive. I have to focus on that instead. I want you to, too."