If you remember one thing from the second presidential debate of 2016, it is probably that for much of the evening, Donald Trump followed Hillary Clinton around the stage like some kind of hulking orange animal stalking his prey. For viewers, it was deeply uncomfortable to watch. But what was it like for Clinton? Was she aware that Trump was trailing her the entire time, leaving mere inches between them when several feet would have been more appropriate? Did the hairs on the back of her neck stand up? Could she smell the “Trump Success” eau de toilette wafting over her shoulders? These are questions that we’ve needed answers to for many months, and finally, they’ve come.

In the first series of excerpts from Clinton’s forthcoming memoir, What Happened, the former Democratic candidate writes:

“He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled. It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, well, what would you do? Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye and say loudly and clearly, ‘back up you creep, get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.’”

While she would have probably been lauded for going with option B, Clinton writes, “I chose option A. I kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off. I did, however, grip the microphone extra hard.” It’s the sort of decision that Clinton is replaying, and will continue dissecting, over and over in her head—what happened?—until the end of days. “I wonder, though, whether I should have chosen option B,” she muses, imagining, perhaps, the series of less unfortunate events that might have resulted. “It certainly would have been better TV. Maybe I have overlearned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to the world.”

It may have been cathartic for Clinton to write, but it’s a tragic coda to a storied political career. “Every day that I was a candidate for president, I knew that millions of people were counting on me and I couldn’t bear the idea of letting them down. But I did. I couldn’t get the job done. And I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life,” she writes. “In this book, I write about moments from the campaign that I wish I could go back and do over. If the Russians could hack my subconscious, they’d find a long list.”