“The boy I met in that warehouse, the one with the stars on his cheeks, that’s the real you. The you who might have stayed soft and gentle if you’d had different parents. But circumstance has made you build a wall around yourself, made you push back against anybody who even slightly wronged you so that they didn’t see how vulnerable you were. You want affection, but you fear it. You want love but are afraid it will be taken from you if you let anybody get too close. You’ve numbed yourself to kill the pain of the life you’ve lived so far, but it’s made you so…impervious to touch that you need
...more
