“I want to forewarn you,” Bryon says seriously. “It’s very possible that I may start talking with a southern accent.”“That’s all right as long as I can do my British accent.”He squints and shakes his head. “No. That’s stupid. Those don’t even match. Can you do a country backwoods toothless mumble? Because that’ll work.”

“Hi there." British accent. That's all he had to say, internally I think I started melting.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he gasps so close to my ear I can feel his breath, a deep voice reverberating through my body. He has a soothing soft southern accent as if his family lived in the south for generations. He puts more pressure on my head effectively diminishing the soothing part. I also hope that’s a gun pressed against my thigh. For that, I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of backing down easy.”

“I stepped out of the circle of his arms with reluctance and patted him on his butt. “That’ll do, donkey,” I said, in my best Scottish accent.”

“There’s no such thing as God, Charlie, at least not how they say. Just like there’s no such thing as Zeus or Apollo or bloody unicorns. You’re on your own. And that can make you feel either lonely or powerful. When you’re born, you wither luck out or you don’t. It’s a lottery. Tough shit or good on yer. But from there, it’s all up to you… soon as you can walk and talk, you start makin your own luck. And I don’t need some spirit in the sky to help me do that. I can do it on me own. But see, that’s what I reckon God really is, Charlie. It’s that part inside me that’s stronger and harder than anything else. And I reckon prayer is just trusting in it, having faith in it, just asking meself to be tough. And that’s all you can do. I don’t need a bunch of bullshit stories about towers and boats and floods or rules about sin. It’s all just a complicated way to get to that place in you, and it’s not honest either. I don’t need to trick meself into thinking anyone else is listenin’, or even cares. Because it doesn’t matter. I matter. And I know I’ll be alright. Because I got a good heart, and fuck this town for making me try and believe otherwise. It’s what you come with and what you leave with. And that’s all I got.”

“I can be a dickhead and I do it on purpose. I tend to bully people into doing what I want. And I let everything that had happened with Dawson amplify those…uh, personality traits. But—” He removed his finger, and his grin spread into a smile. “But you…you make me want to be different. That’s why I didn’t kill Blake. It’s why I don’t want you making those decisions or for you to be around me if I am choosing those things.”