" She did feel everything she’d said. The despair. Who wouldn’t, if they were paying attention? But you didn’t feel it all the time. You walled it up with purpose. With friendship. With vows and work. And you reminded yourself that it was not just you who felt this way, that there were others out there with their own pits and walls and vows and love and work, and you tried to let that make you kind. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t good. But she didn’t know another way. He said, “I’m sorry,” before she could. It felt as wrong to hear as it would have felt to say. They weren’t sorry. It was just hard. “Firewood.” “Yes,” she echoed. “Firewood. "

― Max Gladstone , Last Exit