He wanted my money, and he was using the language of forgiveness to try to obligate me to give it, framing my refusal to fund his comfort as a failure of grace on my part rather than a consequence of his own actions.

And what I finally understood, and told him, is that I could forgive them and still refuse them, that letting go of my hatred did not require me to hand them a check, that I owed them nothing simply because I had chosen, for my own peace, not to spend my life hating them.

Forgiveness is something I might, someday, do for myself.

Rescue is something they had forfeited any right to when they chose the alley.