[ And there's the rub, isn't it? That it doesn't matter that you already know, that you've told yourself the same damned thing a thousand times and then some. Once you hear it from someone else, it just feels so final. Then, once it's final, everything starts breaking apart, and all you can do is watch the sky of your world come tumbling down.

Was that him laughing just now? It came out too soft, too pitiful, too weak and too hurt to belong to him. He is not any of that. He should be, at any rate. ]

It's terrible, really. Guess a part of me refused to believe that it'd actually happen, even when I was helping that kid out.

[ It is arrogant and wrong and selfish, and he knows it. ]