Free Please Undo This Hurt by Seth Dickinson Page A

see in their eyes: Please, God, please, mother of mercy, just let this never have happened. Make it undone. Let me have a world where things like this never come to pass.
    â€œNico,” I say, “do you feel like you want to hurt yourself?”
    He looks at me and the Lighthouse’s sound system glitches for an instant, harsh and negative, as if we’re listening to the inverse music that fills the space between the song and the meaningless static beneath.
    My heart trips, thumps, like the ambulance alarm’s just gone off.
    â€œI don’t want to hurt anyone,” he says, eyes round and honest. “I don’t want to get on Twitter and read about all the atrocities I’m complicit in. I don’t want to trick wonderful women into spending a few months figuring out what a shithead I really am. I don’t want to raise little cats to be coyote food. I don’t even want to worry about whether I’m dragging my friends down. I just want to undo all the harm I’ve ever done.”
    Make it undone.
    In my job I see these awful things—this image always come to me: a cyclist’s skull burst like watermelon beneath the wheels of a truck he didn’t see. I used to feel like I made a difference in my job. But that was a long time ago.
    So I hold to this: As long as I can care about other people, I’m not in burnout. Emotional detachment is a cardinal symptom, you see.
    â€œDid you ever see It’s a Wonderful Life ?” I’m trying to lighten the mood. I’ve only read the Wikipedia page.
    â€œYeah.” Oops. “But I thought it kind of missed the point. What if—” He makes an excited gesture, pointing to an idea. But his eyes are still fixed on the mirror surface of the table, and when he sees himself his jaw works. “What if his angel said, Oh, you’ve done more harm than good; but we all do, that’s life, those are the rules, there’s just more hurt to go around . Why couldn’t he, I forget his name, it doesn’t matter, why couldn’t he say, well, just redact me. Remove the fact of my birth. I’m a good guy, I don’t want to do anyone any harm, so I’m going to opt out. Do you think that’s possible? Not a suicide, that’s selfish, it hurts people. But a really selfless way out?”
    I don’t know what to say to that. It’s stupid, but he’s smart, and he says it so hard.
    He grins up at me, full-lipped, beautiful. The lighthouse beacon comes around again and lights up his silhouette and puts his face in shadow except his small white teeth. “I mean, come on. If I weren’t here—wouldn’t you be having a good night?”
    â€œYou’re wishing you’d never known me, you realize. You’re shitting all over me.”
    â€œDominga Roldan! My knight.” There he goes, closing up again, putting on the armor of charm. He likes that Roldan is so much like Roland. It’s the first thing he ever told me. “Please. You’re the suffering hero at this table. Let’s talk about you.”
    I surrender. I start talking about fucking Jacob.
    But I resolve right then that I’ll save Nico, convince him that it’s worth it to go on, worth it to have ever been.
    *   *   *
    I believe in good people. Even though Nico has what we call “resting asshole face” and a job that requires him to trick people into giving him thousands of dollars (he designs the systems that keep people playing smartphone games, especially the parts that keep them spending) I still think he’s a good man. He cares, way down.
    I believe you can feel that. The world’s a cold place and it’ll break your heart. You’ve got to trust in the possibility of good.
    I dream of gardening far south and west, home in Laredo. Inexplicably, fucking Jacob is there. He smiles at me, big bear face a little stubbled. I want to yell at him: don’t grow