Asa could hardly do anything else but blink repeatedly, his brain and every other sense deciding to hibernate during that conversation.
“Why…” Asa cleared his throat, forced himself to sound composed. “Why are you telling me this?”
Hunter tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes slightly as he studied Asa. “Because you told me that redemption starts with the people I’ve wronged. That it starts with me making things right with people I have no personal ties to, in places where I don’t have any personal gains…” Again, he shrugged. “So here I am, at that starting point.”
If Hunter seemed to be doing a lot of shrugging tonight, it seemed like Asa was doing a lot of blinking. As if each time his eyes shut and flew open within a matter of seconds, the scene before him would vaporise. As if it would turn to smoke and float away like one of those phantom effects they showed on screens.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” Asa said slowly, uncertainly.
Another shrug. “You can walk straight to your truck and drive away. I’m not telling you this because I expect you to respond. I don’t expect your forgiveness, or your empathy, or even your understanding. I owed it to you, and closure is probably the only thing I can give you that would mean anything anymore. I’m just stating the cold hard truths here, San Román.” He unfolded his arms from across his chest and placed them against the railing. “I don’t give a shit about your race. It makes no difference to me. And I wanted to let you know that the only reason I picked on you for it was because I saw how much it broke you when others made racist comments at you. I saw your insecurities form, saw them pile up, and I took pleasure in kicking you where it already hurt.”
Hunter swept his hair with his palm again. “That’s all I needed you to know. That it wasn’t that I thought there was something wrong with you—” and then, in an uncharacteristically soft voice, he added, “—because there really isn’t.”
Was it pathetic on Asa’s part to admit to himself that he appreciated the gesture? That it did mean something to him? It wasn’t that he was still looking for validation—not anymore. Never again. But—but, still, there was perhaps a small void that he could now fill up. Another chapter of his life that he could close now and not look back on.
Asa had satisfied his pride when he’d told Hunter he no longer needed the closure, that it wouldn’t make a difference to him whether he got any or not, but he was somehow glad that Hunter had taken down his own pride and decided to give Asa some of that closure anyway.
Averting his gaze, Asa found his eyes sweeping over the dark streets, illuminated only by the soft glow of the streetlights. His sight followed the sway of the trees under the gentle wind, and he watched the droplets of water that still sat on the leaves from the earlier downpour fall to the ground as the breeze shook the branches.
He shuffled on his feet, hesitated, then moved forward until he too was standing in front of the railings that wrapped around the porch. “Yeah,” he finally said quietly. “You were a terrible person. I’d go as far as to saying that you even broke me.” Asa sighed, looked down at his hands as they brushed away fallen leaves from the surface of the wooden bars. “But the breaking was also what made me—”
“Don’t,” Hunter hissed, the word coming out with such venom that it made Asa stumble back wearily. But when he glanced at Hunter, the loathing and anger he saw on his face wasn’t directed at Asa. Hell, he wasn’t even looking at Asa.
“I didn’t make you,” Hunter bit out. “I broke you. You made yourself. Don’t give me that credit; I never understood the logic behind all those sayings about how you’re supposed to be grateful towards your tormentor. It’s bullshit. Just plain nonsensical crap. Sometimes there isn’t some huge backstory towards why someone hurt you. There always isn’t some heartbreaking tragedy that makes someone inflict all their suffering on you, too.
“Sometimes people are just ugly. Sometimes people are just rotten. Sometimes they just take sick pleasure in watching others hurt. Sometimes they feel powerful in being able to cause all that misery and fear. There isn’t always something more beyond the surface of an angry and hateful person. I’m not going to use whatever I went through as a justification for who I am, who I used to be. Carmen went through the very same things, but she didn’t allow herself to turn into a wretched thing, did she? We make our own choices, Asa.”
Hunter sighed heavily, as if he was releasing so much, too much. “She chose to let it make her; I chose to let it break me.” He knitted his brows together, looking down at his feet. “And you chose to let it make you, eventually. You picked up your pieces, you glued them back together, and you patched yourself up. You. It was all you. You made yourself. So don’t tell me that hurting you was a way for you to build yourself. You wouldn’t have had to do any building if there hadn’t been any breaking in the first place. Don’t give me credit. Don’t give Carson any credit. And don’t ever give the other Hunters or Carsons you’ll
