Page 165 of Embriagado

“Mistakes are unavoidable, Mr. Rivas.”

I snorted. “Of course you’d say something like that.”

Grabbing my burger, I finished it off and chewed as he continued looking at me.

“Would you rather I showed empathy?”

“Maybe?” I was about to clean my greasy fingers over my pants when he handed me a napkin.

“Empathy is useless.”

I scowled. “Huh?”

“The same goes for sympathy. Two sentiments you’re better off without.”

Collecting the remains of his lunch into his empty salad bowl, he put it all in the brown paper bag we got the food in.

“How can you say something like that?” I asked, adding my empty plate and used napkins into the bag.

“Never in my life have I witnessed either of those ideas helping. Instead, they offer an illusion that someone else’s understanding of your struggle can change reality.” He used a wipe to clean his desk. “But it’s all false.” He sprayed the desk with some cleaning shit. “No one can ever understand what you’ve gone through. And if they don’t understand—” Another spray. “—they can never help.”

Done wiping his desk, he pulled something out of his drawer.

“Give me your hands.”

“What?”

He grabbed them forcefully before squeezing a bit of hand sanitizer into them.

“And about your brother.”

I looked up at him.

“Sometimes the stick is better than the carrot.”

His words, as harsh as they might be, made sense. Too much sense. And at the same time, it left me curious to know what had led him to develop such a strict philosophy.

Sometimes the stick is better than the carrot.

I guessed he had a point, as after all, I often went for the stick. Only to me, it came instinctively. Since I was a kid, force was my first and usually only answer. But Ariyan, well, even if he’d chosen the carrot, it was likely poisoned, so I was still uncertain which option was better in his case.

“I have some free time tonight,” he said, snapping me out of my thoughts. Once I locked eyes with him, he went on. “How about you come over?”

“Even though I didn’t win any fights today?”

His expression remained nonchalant.

“I don’t recall you winning any fights last night either.” He pursed his lips. “Nor did you the night before.”

My lips pulled into a self-satisfied smirk.

“Well, some would call the way I pinned you down a win⁠—”

Just then, Ariyan’s phone tinged, and he looked down at the lit screen.

“As delightful as this lunch was, my next meeting is about to be here.”

Getting the message clear, I got up, grabbing the paper bag full of our leftover lunch with me.