“Our Relationship”

One word — and Ashley sees the true scale of the disaster for the first time. “Relationship” is what Simon’s psyche calls three years of beatings, because it was the only stable, intense, reciprocal (in his perception) bond of his life. To call it bullying would mean admitting there was no closeness at all. For a starved psyche that is unbearable.

Hence the fury: Ashley did not insult him — she tried to take away the meaning he stands on. Arguing with such a worldview head-on (“wake up, this is bullying!”) is useless: facts bounce off it like rain off an umbrella, because the picture is doing a job — it holds the person together. It cannot be knocked out of him. It can only be slowly replaced by something alive.