Unfortunately Cynthia was right. People<span style="font-style: italic">didn't</span>know what to say whenever he told them what he'd been through. He'd told psychiatrists and doctors and concerned family, and the only thing that they could think to say was 'It's okay, it's not your fault, we're so sorry this happened.' Maybe they did know what to say after all, but they didn't know what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear that his uncle was going to die. He didn't know how the judicial system worked at the time, but he remembered wanting nothing more than for the judge to sentence him to lethal injection, so he could<span style="font-style: italic">feel</span>what he did. But it was okay, because they were 'sorry,' right?<br/><br/>Tracy took the glass as it was offered to him, raising it up to match her salute before drinking deeply. "I moved on." That made him sound course, unfeeling. That wasn't the case, though; he still felt it. He just stopped letting it mess with him, so he smiled. For his students, for his parents, for his girlfriend, but mostly for himself. It just wasn't like Tracy to let that keep him down for too long. "Smiling is important," he replied, taking another, smaller sip. "Kind of keeps me grounded, you know? I don't want people to know, so I smile. That's why I knew something was up with you, especially the past couple of weeks. You haven't smiled in a while, and I kind of miss it."