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His pencil holder Stapler The laarden that was supposed to make him feel calm A stack of papers Until his office was littered with the kind of destruction that mirrored the man he ithin

Piece by piece, he exposed himself Tore away the walls Tore away the facade until he had to look at it Until he had to look at himself

Pain tore at his chest For once, he didn’t have to strike out to cause physical agony as punish him alive from the inside out He dropped to his knees, leaned forward, his forehead and forear the floor

She was right He was a liar He was scared, of hiain Sohi everyone from himself

When he was really protecting hi behind a sofa, waiting, waiting for the monster to find him A monster from outside, or a monster inside of himself

He had believed, wholly, that he had banished his every emotion But it was a lie, too He hadn’t He had si he did Who he was

For a brief moment in time, he’d had love in this house A woman who loved him A child who trusted him completely

And he had thrown it away The final punishment for his sins The ulti he had sworn he must never do And he had done it So he had pushed her away, pushed them away

And noas reduced to nothing Raw and bleeding, all of his protection gone All of his defenses, his ways of dealing, exposed for the fli but lie there and embrace the pain, the love, the e, not just for Ana, but for every moment in his life

The walls he’d built to protect hi, reduced to ash before his eyes He was not the ht he was And he let hie saw A man worthy of her love, worthy of Ana’s admiration Worthy of the Colsons’ adoption

For a long ti Anguish washing over hiainst him

Finally, he stood, his hands shaking, and dialed his mother and father’s phone number