[ The imago. All that keeps Paul from curling up on himself like a caterpillar is that final instruction, but his cheeks still flush an unusually uncontrolled pink as he devotes his energies to not hanging his head in self-indulgent rumination. He could - he has - worn a groove in himself shaped perfectly to his inward turned thoughts.

But not here. He is being invited to a threshold. He doesn't want to step away. ]

No.

[ He draws the back of his hand over his dry mouth, wiping nothing away. ]

I mean that you're right. I can't. It's not - productive. [ A pause, an adjustment. ] It's not helpful. It's...another kind of excuse, isn't it?

Telling yourself the only way forward is back. Or hating yourself so much that you can't allow the possibility of...

If I don't think there's a better version of myself, there won't be. You can't achieve what you can't imagine.

[ Platitudes, but he says them like they're new again to him. He understands them better, with the weight of what he failed to change in anyone else across his knit brow. ]

And no one else can do that for me.