Now I could see it for what it was.

Control is not the same as strength, though the two can look identical from the outside and for a long time.

Strength can bend; strength can bear a surprise.

Control can only hold as long as every variable stays where it was put, and a man who has staked everything on control is, underneath, the most fragile creature in any room, because the entire structure depends on nothing ever going wrong.

I was, at that moment, the thing that was about to go wrong.