You never have to earn your safety by performing your wounds.

If something scares you, I will just fix it, and you can keep the story until you’re grown, or forever, whichever you choose.

The people who love children coming out of hard places sometimes think the love is in the understanding.

It isn’t.

The love is in the propped door and the closed mouth — in giving a kid the thing he needs while asking him for nothing, least of all the account of his own pain.

Ollie needed the doors open.