I was walking out first, before they could do it to me.

It’s — it’s the only way I knew how to make it stop hurting so much.”

Chapter 19 — The Plan He Ruined

I sat in that kitchen and let the ten failed placements rearrange themselves in front of me into something completely different from what everyone had seen.

Ten families had looked at a boy who went silent and shut himself in his room and said cutting things, and they had read him as damaged, unmanageable, beyond help.

And all that time, every single time, Silas had simply been refusing to let anyone replace his sister.