paddling up de-nial

I turned in a book yesterday. Well, my partner does the business crap, but you get my meaning. So that was a relief. And I'm pleased with how it turned out. Now I'm back wandering through SCAR.

I'm finding myself applying some lessons learned from Supernatural of all places: if I want it to happen, don't let it happen. (Sam wants Dean to admit X is bothering him, Dean cracks a bad joke about a woman or turns up the music.)

Castile, after doing a Bad Thing which results in the previous post -- Trinidad getting tortured -- tries to apologize. I want, and Castile wants, Trinidad to get mad, to talk it out, maybe hit it out, so there can be Resolution. Absolution. Confession.

But Trinidad is the Prince of Denial.  So he basically says he'll kick Castile's ass if he keeps bringing it up. And so launches a Secret that has the power to rip them apart right when they need each other most. It's a late add-in that I think will up tension in a lot of scenes, especially since certain people know the truth.

I've been thinking a lot about honest portrayal of denial. I think in the end, people think they're fine. It's not like they wax poetic about trying to not think about stuff. They simply don't. I also think memory failure is a tactic, at least with me. Trin doesn't know how he feels about Castile in his life after all these years, not to mention about a thousand other crises happening all at once. But the last thing he's going to do is talk about it.

Any thoughts/advice on portraying denial?