"Did you understand pain?" George said blankly to Sarah, as if it was the first time she had heard the word--pain.
"I think so. At least I thought I did," she answered.
"What did it feel like?" he asked.
"I don't know," she admitted to him. "What is it supposed to feel like?" She was frustrated with his questions. She had believed, for quite sometime, that he was unsatisfied with her ability to answer to him.
"It's not supposed to feel like anything, Mary. Only you would know what it feels like," he said to her with a scoffing tone. It was that kind of tone that made her withdraw from most conversations with George. To say he was insensitive was a gross understatement of his lack of empathy for other human beings.
"But what if I don't know? What if I tell you that I seriously don't know what it feels like?" she barked at him. "You have nothing else you can say to me? Nothing you can tell me about how it feels? Have you no heart?"
"Who says that? Of course I have a heart," he yelled back. "Just tell me what you think it feels like. That's all I'm asking."
"That's not what you said, George," Sarah said, nearly losing her breath while saying the words.
"That's what I meant--"
"But that's not what you said," Sarah exclaimed.
The silence was palpable and Sarah noticed a blue haze looming in the room. For the first time in her life, she experienced tangible loneliness. Something she could put her finger on, something she could feel inside.
"This---"
"Yes?" he asked.
"This is what it feels like."
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