Re: lakeside mansions: Dietre A. & Hugh C.
Did it help knowing that Hugh would do the same? Dietre wasn’t exactly sure. Maybe it did. He made a little noncommittal sound in his throat. “He isn’t much better in this Repose either. I’ve had some run ins with him since… But not any recently.” It would be impossible to explain that he still felt an attraction for the man despite his awful personality, so Dietre didn’t try. He had yet to even find out his actual name.
“It does make sense,” he assured Hugh firmly. “And it's good that you feel like you’re learning from it.” Dietre’s gaze dropped with a guilty look. “I’m still trying to learn that same lesson. I tend to blame myself for all of my losses… Especially since it's happened so often what else am I supposed to think?” The faults of his former friends seemed minimal compared to his own. And all of their excuses for leaving sounded reasonable at the time.
“...Sometimes I think I blame myself because otherwise I’d be angry.” He didn’t want to hate the people he once cared about. He hated his father, he let his rage build and fester for nineteen years until it exploded in an attempted murder. To let himself hate anyone other than himself was to sow the seed of the same thing happening again, and that wasn’t what he wanted. “It's better to be sad than angry…” He glanced toward Hugh again, vulnerable. “...Would you agree?”