It sits in my chest like a weight I can't shake.
"She forgave me," I tell Tank now. "Gave me a home, told me she understood and that she didn't blame me."
"And you think that makes you worse somehow?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because I don't deserve her forgiveness. I shot her and she forgave me anyway. What kind of person does that make me?"
"Someone who was forgiven by someone kind. That's all it makes you."
I shake my head. "You don't understand. The worst part isn't that I shot her. The worst part is that I'd do it again."
Tank goes still. "What?"
"If Ruby was in danger and that was the only way to save her, I'd shoot Octavia all over again. I'd hurt someone kind and good if it meant protecting my sister."
The admission hangs between us, heavy and ugly.
"That's what makes me a monster," I say. "Not that I did it, but that I'd do it again."
Tank's quiet for a long time, then he says, "Or it makes you someone who loves his sister enough to do terrible things to protect her."
"That's the same thing."
"It's not. One is evil for the sake of evil, the other is desperate love taken to an extreme."
"There's no difference."
"There is, and the fact you feel guilty proves it. A monster wouldn't care, wouldn't lose sleep, wouldn't spend a decade punishing himself."
I want to believe him but I can't. The pattern is too clear.
"What happened to Ruby?" Tank asks.
The question makes my chest tight. “Octavia and Digger took her in and have raised her as their own ever since. She’s thriving and happy.”
"You ever see her since you moved to Dublin?"
"She calls me once a week and tells me about her life."
"She forgive you too?"
"She says there's nothing to forgive, says I saved her."
"Maybe you did."
"I shot someone, Tank. I held a kid at gunpoint. That's not saving anyone, that's just violence."
"It's both. It can be both."
I don't answer because I don't know what to say. How do I explain that the guilt and the certainty that I'd do it again exist in the same space?
How do I make him understand that loving Ruby enough to hurt someone for her is exactly what makes me dangerous?
I spend the rest of Saturday working on my bike. My hands are steadier when I'm doing something.