Page 44 of Assassin Anonymous

I realize he should be on my amends list, and he isn’t.

Which makes me wonder how many people I left off.

How many more people I hurt.

Will the process ever end? Or will I spend every waking moment until the day I die trying to make good on things I can never truly make good for?

“I apologize,” Lavigne says to me. “As a guest, I should have let you go first, but I just needed to get that out. You understand?”

I nod slowly, not really sure how to tackle this one. Part of me wants to say: It was me. I’m the one who took your ear. If he tries to attack me, presumably the other people in the room will stop him. Maybe this is the safest place to do it, where we can talk it out with witnesses.

I want to do that. Except for the burning feeling in my chest. The reminder of the ways that I’ve left hurt in this world. This man just wants to be better and I make it harder for him every day.

“All good, buddy,” I tell him, as I take the six-month chip out of my pocket and turn it over in my hand. “Not sure how you do it over here, but my home group does a chip for one month, six months, and one year.” I hold up the six-month chip. “I’m having a hard day, too. I’m a few days out from replacing this one, and it felt like such a big milestone. Now some things from my past have come back to haunt me. And I just feel it all coming back. The way I used to be. The worst part is, I kind of like it. I miss that feeling. Killing people makes life a lot easier, you know? Then the problem goes away. And maybe that’s why recovery is so hard. We never learned how to sit with the things we did. We just put them in the ground and moved on. We never had to have the hard conversations…”

The rest of them are nodding along. I don’t know if there’s a time limit here—Ray didn’t say anything, but again, there usually isn’t—so I keep going.

“I made my first amends…a day ago?” I gesture to my face, and the cuts and bruises left by Billy. “It was weird. He beat the shit out of me, but he also seemed to forgive me. It was a little complicated. Point is, I thought it was going to make me better. Encourage me to stay the course and keep going with this. Instead there’s a part of me that just wishes I had killed him on the spot, so he can’t come back and cause trouble for me.”

More nods.

“It’s hard to let people live,” I say. “It’s hard to live.”

I glance up at Lavigne, who holds my gaze.

I did it.

It was me.

I’m sorry.

Just say it.

“I understand the feeling, my friend,” he says.

That word, the way it comes out of his mouth, it scorches my exposed skin.

Friend.

I tumble into a dark hole of self-hatred, interrupted by the Japanese woman, who raises her hand.

“Hina,” Ray says, gesturing to her.

“The Pale Horse, no?” she asks.

My heart slams to a stop in my chest and I look up at her, but she’s looking at Lavigne.

“Yes,” Lavigne says. “He was the one who did this.”

“I’m afraid to say this, but I think I have to, in the interest of being honest with myself.” She looks down and closes her eyes. “He’s the one person I would throw this all away for. I would kill him if I had the chance. Without a second thought.”

“That’s a tough thing to confront,” Ray says. “Thank you for sharing that.”

What? I don’t even recognize her.

Ray clasps his hands in front of him. “Harboring hatred for the Pale Horse is like drinking poison and hoping it kills him. It doesn’t do any of us any good. We have to remember he’s sick and suffering. What you have to focus on is what you’re doing today.”

As he says this, he glances at me, thinking maybe this is helping.