“My best friend spent his entire life swallowing his pain like rusty nails just to turn it into a weapon. I watched it eat him alive, and now I’m watching him in the aftermath,” he tells me. “Being mean? It won’t make me leave, Coraline. I’ve withstood storms much more violent than you. You are not what the world tells you. You are not a bitch. You are a girl. A girl who was abused. A girl just trying to survive.”
