Thinking this, I looked back over at Owen, who was drumming his fingers on his knee. Kirsten, of course, would never hesitate to say what was on her mind. So with her song playing in my ears, I decided to follow suit. Or try to. "So about today," I said. He looked over at me. "I'm sorry about what happened."

"What happened?"

I fixed my eyes on the road ahead, feeling my face flush. "When we were doing the role-playing, and I freaked out and walked away."

I was expecting an "It's okay" or maybe a "Don't worry about it." Instead, he said, "That was freaking out?"

"Well," I said. "I guess. Yeah."

"Huh," he said. "Okay."

"I didn't mean to get so upset," I explained. "Like I said, I just don't do confrontations very well. Which I guess was obvious. So… I'm sorry."

"It's all right." He tried to sit back again, his elbow knocking the door. "In fact…"

I waited for him to finish this thought. When he didn't, I said, "What?"

"It's just, to me, that wasn't really freaking out," he said.

"No?"

He shook his head. "To me, freaking out is raising your voice. Screaming. Veins bulging. Hitting people in parking lots. That kind of thing."

"I don't do that," I said.

"I'm not saying you should." He reached up, running a hand through his hair; as he did so, the ring on his middle finger caught the light, glinting for a second. "It's just a semantic issue, I guess. Take this next right."

I did, turning onto a tree-lined street. All the houses were big, with wide front porches. We passed a group of kids in a cul-de-sac playing roller hockey, then some moms on a corner, grouped around a pack of strollers.

"This is it, up here," he told me. "The gray one."

I slowed down, then pulled over to the curb. The house was beautiful, with a wide front porch with a swing, and bright pink flowers in pots lining the steps. A yellow cat was lying on the front walk, stretched out in the sunshine. "Wow," I said. "Great house."

"Well, it's not glass," he said. "But it's okay."

We sat there for a second, our situation now reversed from last time, me waiting for him to go inside. "You know," I said finally, "I just wanted to say you were right about what you said earlier. It is kind of hard to hold a lot in. But for me… it's sometimes even harder to let it out."

I wasn't sure why I felt compelled to bring this up again. Maybe to finally explain myself. To him, or to me.

"Yeah," he said. "But you gotta get stuff out. Otherwise it just festers, and eventually, you just blow."

"See, that's the part I can't deal with," I said. "I can't take it when people are angry."

"Anger's not bad," he said. "It's human. And anyway, just because someone's upset doesn't mean they'll stay that way."

I looked down at my steering wheel, picking at the edge. "I don't know," I said. "In my experience, when people I'm close with have gotten upset with me, that's it. It is forever. Everything changes."

Owen didn't say anything for a second. I could hear a dog barking from some house down the street. "Well," he said, "maybe you weren't as close with them as you thought."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning that if someone is really close with you, your getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don't change because of it. It's just part of the relationship. It happens. You deal with it."

"You deal with it," I said. "I wouldn't even know how to do that."

"Well, that makes sense," he said. "Considering you never let it happen in the first place."

The CD was still going, now playing a song by Rush as a minivan drove past us, kicking up some leaves. I had no idea how many minutes had passed while we'd been sitting there. It seemed like a long time.

"You sure have a lot of answers," I said.

"I don't," he replied, reaching down to twist one of his rings around his finger. "I'm just doing the best I can, under the circumstances."

"How's that going?" I asked.

He glanced up at me. "Well, you know," he said. "It's day to day."

I smiled. "I like your rings," I said, nodding at his hands. "Are they the exact same?"

"Sort of. And not really." He reached down, sliding the one off his left hand and handing it to me. "They're kind of a before-and-after thing. Rolly made them for me. His dad's a jeweler."

The ring was heavy in my palm, the silver thick. "He made this?"

"Not the ring," he said. "The engraving. On the inside."

"Oh." I tilted the ring slightly, peering along the interior curve. There, in all capital letters, in formal, very elegant type, it said go fuck yourself . "Nice," I said.

"Classy, huh?" he said. He made a face. "That was me pre-arrest. I was a little…"

"Angry?"

"You could say. He made this one when I finished the Anger Management course." He slid the ring off his other middle finger, then held it up to my face. In the same type, same size, it said /smc or not.

I laughed. "Well," I said, handing it back to him. "It's always good to know your options."