"And you're here because you think you killed your wife,"

That familiar cold metal in his gut, the rising ache. He'd never said it to Benny, never admitted it aloud. "I did kill her," Eli said, his voice dry in his mouth.

"You think it," Benny said, patiently. "You live it, again and again, by keeping it in your mind."

Eli frowned, feeling agitated now, angry. "So? I keep it in my mind. I feel bad about it, I... I deserve to be punished."

"And as long ad you believe that, you will stay here. If things were stable, outside, that might be all right, at least for a while longer. I wish you had more time... but things are speeding up, now."
...
"Time is moving."
...
"You think you deserve to stay in the pain, to repeat it. You think that you murdered your wife, and lost your relationship with your daughter because of it."
...
"Yes."

Benny reached forward and took his hand, looking into his eyes. "I know what it is, to stay in pain. You think it's beyond your control, that you don't have a choice... but you can decide to let it go. Because here's the thing - even if it's true, even if you actually murdered her, it doesn't matter anymore. Whatever happened, it's the past, now. For you, this place - " Benny glanced around at the dim, empty room. " - is like a cage of the past. It's a trap. And you can leave it behind. You can - you must - choose to set yourself free."

Tears trickled from his eyes, he couldn't help it, no longer cared. He felt desperate, felt he was being offered some impossible dream. "How? How?"

"By understanding time," Benny said. "By knowing the truth. You already know it, most people know it, but they let themselves forget. They hang on to the pain because it's familiar, because to let it go might mean having to change. It's easier to keep the pain than to ask the questions, to find out why you think what you think, to question why you do the things you do. Nobody wants that, nobody wants to tear themselves down, rebuild from the beginning, only to have to do it again, and again. But the nature of time, for beings like you and me - it has to be about movement. It has to be a process, not a goal. There is no goal."

"I know that, but - "

"You don't know it! Listen, Eli, hear what I'm saying with your gut, not with your mind. You think that holding yourself responsible for your wife's death, that staying in a place like this will help somebody, somewhere. You think your relationship with your daughter is something that is, a noun, a thing that can be broken, or fixed. Neither of those things are true. Time moves. Ruri is dead, she died long, long ago, and you are alive. What you have with your daughter isn't a thing, it's a process, a verb, it's something you create with each and every moment. If you want to atone for Ruri's death, then do it. Understand the process you have with your daughter, as much as you can, work with her to make each living moment worthwhile. But repeating the guilt, living in the pain, in the past - it doesn't work. It denies time. It denies life."
...
He felt compelled to tell Benny that he was wrong, somehow, that he needed to feel bad, to stay where he was... but a part of him knew better, too, knew that Benny was telling him the truth. He'd told himself that he'd broken his daughter's heart... and then clung to the guilt, using it, letting it victimize both of them instead of trying to understand the process of their relationship. So many years, wasted. How could he live with that, with knowing that? How -

"There's the trap again," Benny said, a hint of smile in his eyes. "Do you see? Get past the blame. See what's in front of you, see her. Let it go."

Eli shook his head, but not in denial of anything. It was such a leap of understanding, of faith, to accept - time moved. Was it really that simple? Could it be as easy as just deciding?

"It's never easy," Benny said. "But it is that simple. Stand up, Eli. Come with me. Decide to move on, to explore, to see what there is to see."
-------

Guilt... I'm starting to hate that word. A lot of things going through my mind... To get past the blame... the process... to start again... with that one sheet of paper...