" Here was a boy barely holding himself together. He seemed as though he wanted to curl into himself. I wanted to shield him from everything horrible. Everything ugly.
Just as he had been trying to do for me.
…
He was someone who had been forced to make choices that would shatter most people. I could see the fragments being chipped away little by little as he struggled to hold on. "
― A. Meredith Walters , One Day Soon (One Day Soon, #1)