“Is that morality, or strategy?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit. “I don’t want them to see that part of me.”
Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Once you understand how easy it is to hurt someone, something in you shifts.
“Because you're ashamed?”
“Because I don’t want them to learn it.”
“Devin,” she murmurs, “do you believe you are fundamentally broken?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because normal people don't think the way I think.”
“Explain what you mean.”
I lean back in the chair and stare at the dark screen while the silence stretches between us.
“I don’t wonder whether someone deserves to live.” My thumb drags over my knuckle. “I decide whether their actions justify it. I look for leverage before I look for emotion. When someone threatens the people I care about, my first thought is how easily their body would break. I don’t feel disturbed by that. I feel focused.”
“Do you experience remorse or regrets?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“My mother.”
I look down at the desk in front of me. The framed picture of me and Samantha sits beside my laptop. I stare at it for a moment.
“I didn’t talk to her before she died.”
Dr. Morales doesn't interrupt.
“I thought she abandoned me,” I continue. “I thought she chose to leave and start a new life without me. I believed that for most of my life.”
My eyes stay on the picture.
“But that wasn’t the truth.”
The silence stretches between us.
“She tried to find me,” I sigh. “Someone lied to her and made sure she never could.”
My fingers rest lightly against the frame.
“By the time I understood what really happened, it was too late.”
Dr. Morales speaks carefully.
“And that is where the remorse comes from.”
“Yes.”
I keep looking at the picture of a woman who looks relieved just to be holding her son.
