His own eyes go liquid and hot. He thinks of everything his mother has told him, of all the years his father has been trying to protect him. Of the man in the pizza parlor, the man at the Common. The woman with her dog. Sadie’s parents, his mother’s parents. His father’s parents retreating from their lives, Mrs. Pollard crouched anxiously beside his computer, D. J. Pierce’s spit falling inches from his shoe. Everything that needs to be changed feels immense and immeasurable.
