" Maybe that's what intimacy was... A sense of dread at what could go wrong, a stifling of fear, a baring of the vulnerable self to the judgement of someone else. The jagged edge of one soul meeting another, tearing and rending, a connection and a diminishment both. All that imperfection, all that friction - it wore down the tread, expanding rather than preserving. "

― Gregg Andrew Hurwitz , Prodigal Son (Orphan X, #6)