The person consumed by revenge has not escaped their abuser.

They have moved in with them, permanently, in the cold house of their own resentment.

Whereas to build a warm life is to do the one thing that actually removes them from the center of your story: to turn away, and face your own life, and pour your finite and precious attention into things that have nothing to do with them at all.

The warmest possible revenge and the most complete possible freedom turn out to be the same act, and it is not an act of aggression.

It is an act of turning away.

My grandfather knew this.