Page 57 of Worse Than Wicked
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
“Then you’ll slow down on your own?”
“Not like I have much choice,” he mutters.
“Is that what you did with Dad on your outings?” I ask. “He taught you how to be a real man?”
“Something like that,” Duke says with a little scoff. “I told you, I fucked a nun.”
“Yeah,” I say. “But how is that father-son time? Did he fuck her with you?”
“No,” he says, scowling. “Mostly he watched and gave me pointers. Or he’d take me to see a priest so he could lecture me and toughen me up.”
“Yeah, that sounds like dad.”
Duke slouches in his chair and glares at me, a belligerent tilt to his chin. “Are you ever going to ask why I stood there and let him die?”
“Why did you?”
“I don’t know,” he says, bending forward and dropping his head into his hands. “Everyone else was going along with it, and I wanted to do the right thing, and if everyone said it was right, I figured it must be. I don’t know what’s right and wrong, Baron. How do people know that?”
“They don’t,” I say. “They learn by studying what other people say it is. Then you follow that.”
“But you know,” he insists. “You would have pulled Dad out, even if fifty people were there, ready to let him die. You would have stood up for him anyway.”
“Maybe.”
“You would have,” he insists, raising his head.
“I would have done what was best for me in that moment,” I say. “The same as you did. You can predict what other people will do afterwards, but not with any real accuracy. There are too many variables with humans, especially when they’re free to interact with other humans in the world. In a lab, it would be easier to predict.”
“Like Jane,” he says glumly.
“Yes, like Jane,” I say, disgust rising at her memory. “She was predictable. That’s why I got rid of her. There was nothing more I could learn from her.”
“I thought you got rid of her for Mabel.”
I shrug. “I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I weren’t already bored of her.”
“And you’re happy with your decision?”
I pause, thinking over how to answer that. At last, I nod. “I’m glad we got rid of her, and that we have Mabel. I’m not happy that I couldn’t find her, and that therefore, I can’t be certain she’s dead. I’m annoyed with myself for being sloppy that night and not trusting that you had Mabel under control. I knew you were capable of it.”
“No, I wasn’t,” he says. “I made a mess of things. I burned down Mabel’s house. I think that’s partly why I let Dad die. If they’d chosen something besides fire… You know I can’t think around it. The flames hypnotize me.”
“I know.”
He rubs the heel of his hand against his forehead. “But even if they hadn’t burned him… Maybe I would have let them. I don’t know when to do what will make me happy later. It’s like nothing will. And I don’t see it’s going to make it worse until it’s too late, and I’ve already done it. I don’t know what will let me have a clear conscience. I don’t think I’ve ever had one.”
I’ve never had anything else, but I don’t say that. It’s not the time to brag.
He goes on anyway. “Everything I do to try and make it better just makes me feel worse. I want to make everyone happy, but the happier it makes them, the shittier it makes me feel. That’s fucked up, right?”
“So, stop trying to make other people happy,” I say. “Make yourself happy.”
“I try,” he says, throwing up his hands. “That’s what’s so fucked. I think if I make them happy, that’ll make me happy. But it doesn’t. It’s like… There’s only so much to go around. If I give them happiness, then I have less. If I do what I think people want, then they’re all happy, and I’m fucking miserable.”
“So next time, do what you want. Who cares if they’re happy? You’re the important one.”
