“But it turns out,” said Edwin, “there are people in the world who don’t think that spending time together also means fighting over every little thing.” That was a direct stab, neatly under a rib. Jack had always enjoyed a good fight and the challenge of trading insults. He’d grown up knowing himself loved; either there was affection behind an insult, or it simply didn’t occur to him to take it seriously, because he’d never bothered to believe anything bad about himself. For a long time he’d assumed, as children did, that his experience was the only one. That everyone else also treated
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