The shell of who I am in this house doesn’t fit anymore. It’s too small, too tight, suffocating. I don’t want to wear it anymore, but I don’t know who I am here without it. I’ve worn this costume for so long, how do I change it? Sometimes it feels like it’s become attached to me, like a growth, maybe tattooed into my skin, so I can’t escape it. At school, with the team, the mask is similar, familiar. Until I’m alone with Nick. He sees past the front to the core of who I am and reaches out for the broken kid who never got a chance to grieve. The broken kid who’s afraid of a hand up, afraid of
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