I'll be damned

"Well, I'll be damned!" I said when I saw her. "Come on in! Have you been excommunicated, or what?"
"I didn't want to come up here," Rennie said tersely. "I didn't want to see you again at all, Jake."
"Oh. But people want to do the things they do."
"Joe drove me in, Jake. He told me to come up here."
This was intended as a bombshell, I believe, but I was not in an explodable mood.
"What the hell for?"
Rennie had started out with pretty firm, solemn control, but now she got choky and couldn't, or wouldn't, answer the question.
"Has he turned you out?"
"No. Can't you understand why he sent me up here? Please don't make me explain it!" Tears were imminent.
"Honestly, I couldn't guess, Rennie. Are we supposed to re-enact the crime in a more analyzable way, or what?"
Well, that finished her control; the head-whipping began. Rennie, incidentally, looked great to me. She'd obviously been suffering intensely for the past few days, and, like exhausted strength, it lent her all the sexual attractiveness that tormented women often have. Tender, lovelike feelings announced their presence in me.
"Everything that's happened wrenches my heart," I said to her, laying my hand on her shoulder. "You've no idea how much I sympathize with Joe, and how much more with you. But he sure is making a Barnum and Bailey out of it, isn't he? This sending you up here is the damndest thing I ever heard of. Is it supposed to be punishment?"
"It's not ridiculous unless you're determined to see it that way," Rennie said, tearfully but vehemently. "Of courseyou'd say it was, just so you won't have to take Joe seriously."
"What's it all about, for heaven's sake?".
"I didn't want to see you again, Jake. I told Joe that. He told me everything you said to him last night, and at first I thought you were lying all the way. I guess you know I've hated you ever since we made love; when I told Joe about it, I didn't leave out anything we did -- not a single detail -- but I blamed you for everything."
"That's okay. I don't have any real opinion on the subject."
"I can't blame you any more," Rennie went on. "It's too easy, and it doesn't really solve anything. I guess I don't have any opinion either -- and Joe doesn't either."
"He doesn't?"
"He's heartbroken. So am I. But he's determined not to evade the question in any way, or take a stand just to cover up the hurt. You don't realize what an obsession this is with him! Sometimes I've thought we'd both lose our minds this past week. This thing is tearing us up! But Joe would rather be torn up than falsify the trouble in any way. That's why I'm here."
She hung her head.
"I told him I couldn't stand to see you again, whether you were responsible or not. He got angry and said I was being melodramatic, evading the question. I thought he was going to hit me again! But instead he calmed down and -- even made love to me, and explained that if we were ever going to end our trouble we'd have to be extra careful not to make up any versions of things that would keep us from facing the facts squarely. If anything, we had to do all we could to throw ourselves as hard as possible against the facts, and as often as possible, no matter how much it hurt. He said that as it stands now we're defeated, and the only possible chance to save anything is never to leave the problem for a minute. I told him I'd die if I had to live with it much longer the way I've been doing, and he said he might too, but it's the only way. I guess you think this is ridiculous, too."