I imagine the eleven-year-old boy I left behind is there, the one who spat at the boy who meant everything to him, casting him out. All in the name of protecting him. The boy I just chased out of our life once and for all.. He sees me, and the hope in his eyes he’d been so scared of feeling dims when he realizes I’m not there to set him free from the dark. But I thought… the younger me starts to say. I know, I respond. I thought so too. And then I sit next to him, and repeat the words he once muttered into his pillow— “It’s for the best.” Only this time, it’s not my dad I’m so desperate to
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