Tommy never thought it would come to this. He'd believed he was past being consumed by anger. He'd had moments where he won that battle, resisting the urge.
He acknowledged his slip immediately. He did not attempt to justify his actions, yet felt no regret either. He just understood he had made another mistake and resolved to do better next time.
...
It's clear that trauma leaves deep scars, burrowing beneath the surface of a person's life. Even a seemingly perfect existence cannot prevent those buried memories from suddenly resurfacing.
...
Tommy had contacts at the local PD. He called in a favor, instructing his contacts to clean up the "car accident." This was the very first time he'd ever leveraged his connections for a cleanup.
He wanted nothing to do with the accident, hence the urgency of calling in the favor to the PD, and the embassy for repatriation.
He specifically requested that the incident be classified as a simple hit-and-run. Additionally, he ordered the bully's body to be discreetly repatriated to his homeland.
Tommy considered this his final "second chance" for the guy. In a twisted act of respect, he ensured the guy would be properly buried and receive a funeral in his birthplace.
The plight of the teenage boy, Theodore Wilson, bothered him more than the killing he himself committed.
Still, without attempting to justify the crime, Tommy felt, as a survivor of bullying himself, that the guy deserved his fate.
By contrast, he'd ensured the guy's body would "go back home," sparing him the fate of being disposed of at the bottom of a secluded cliff.