Resilience. There was a difference between resilience and not caring. He knew that. He wasn't strong. He'd fed his mother her habits until she'd died. Was that a mercy killing? No. It was selfishness, plain and simple. He wanted her money, hated the specter that haunted their home. And he hadn't saved his girlfriend. He'd just let her be swallowed whole by the world he'd created. She'd done it without caring. She'd deserved it.
He didn't need the pool to feel that shock, the one like cold water splashing over him. He heard a different voice saying something similar, a soft voice. "See? You don't always have to be such a dick."
It was one of the first things that she'd said to him, far before the last thing she'd said was "help me".
Seth closed his eyes. "Yeah." His brow was drawn, his lips tightening. Blackness welled up, like crude from a hole in the ground, and he could feel it fill him from fingertips to toes. He wasn't nice or decent or friendly or resilient or anything other than smart, nasty and sharp. Lauren had been insane when she'd fallen in love with him. He'd conned her. He knew it. He'd wanted her to like him and she had.
And then she'd destroyed herself.
Still, when he tried, nothing nasty presented itself to say. Fuck. A week here and he was already losing his touch.