Just an accident? Was that all it was? How come he made so many of them
though? He didn't mean to feel guilt about everything, he just... did.
He felt as though he didn't have an ounce of pride left, and in some
ways, he didn't care either. Without the one person who had made him
feel alive... what was the point? Maybe it was he that was an
accident. Maybe he never should have been born in the first place and he
was just destined to live like this, feeling as though nothing was
really worth it anymore.
Swallowing hard, he just remains quiet, taking in Misty's little lesson
about making his own choices. The only problem was that he was always
making the wrong ones, even when he thought they were right. He'd
thought he'd been right when he'd tried to protect Ryan - and now he saw
it was the worst decision he'd ever made. So how was he ever supposed
to know? Again, he doesn't respond, but sits quietly as she finishes
with his hand. He nods numbly at her instructions, knowing he'd do his
best to do what she said - he didn't want to ever feel like he had when
he'd had that infection before.
Misty's question about supper automatically sends a hunger pain
through his stomach and he looks at the floor. "No... I guess I was too
tired," he answers lamely. Why he felt so down tonight, he really wasn't
sure. It was as if the pain in his hand had gone straight to his heart
for some reason, and the depression had returned like a tidal wave. "I'm
not really hungry."
Stopping with Katie, Hunter isn't sure why she'd halted, but her
smile keeps him there as his arm still rests over one of her shoulders.
He wasn't sure what he'd though she might say, but her words are not
what he expected. They were... deep. Cutting almost. And in a way... it
was sobering.
Hunter doesn't withdraw, but his eyes
flicker as his emotions try to build walls that he didn't want to have
between himself and Katie. She was exposing the bare truth - a truth
which he rarely admitted even to himself. It was almost frightening.
Katie was a woman who had figured him out... who had weighed him and
come to a conclusion that perhaps he hadn't yet... or hadn't wanted to.
She liked him as he was now... not the rowdy trouble-maker he'd left in
Nevada. But he'd accepted that other side of himself as part of who he
was... as who he wanted to be. Yet Katie was not just informing him of
his mask - she was taking the liberty of pulling it off herself and
exposing him, whether he wanted to be or not. And he felt... as though
he wanted to hide. It was confusing though, as part of him wanted
desperately to embrace what he knew to be the truth that she spoke.
Taken
off guard by Katie's gentle kiss, Hunter blinks, finally a little smile
returning. She was... soft... timid almost but confident enough to have
made that move. And it took the edge off the confusing emotions she'd
just churned up. There was a bit of him that would like to pull her
closer right about now and return the favor of a kiss. But he didn't
want to ruin this moment either, so he refrains. "You're pretty amazing,
you know that?"
He cocks his head. "I'm rather
honored to call you my friend, too." It was just as well that he could
move on from the topic of himself and who he really was. Keeping the
focus on Katie was more comfortable for him.
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