“No,” said Elliot. “I’m not. That medic, Elka Pathwind? She’s my mother. She left me when I was a baby, and she doesn’t want me now. She looked at me as if I was some years-old mess that she’d thought was behind her, something rotting and useless and—and hateful, and I do not know what to do except maybe prove her right. I’m not—I don’t know how to be—I’m planning on being emotional and too much trouble and everything you hate, so why don’t you just go? Go! Get out!”
