No child owes their existence to the person who feeds them.

No one earns the right to be safe by being useful.

I spent my whole childhood trying to be quiet enough, and small enough, and good enough to finally deserve not to be hurt — and it never worked, because it was never possible, because that was never how any of it actually worked.” He looked, finally, back at his aunt, and there was something almost like pity in it now, underneath the steel.

“You didn’t just steal my mother’s money,” he said.