“Can you hear me?”
I nodded as best I could. He sat back, soaking wet, breathed out hard, and put his head in his hands. When he looked up again, water dripped from his face, from his eyes. I could barely believe what I was seeing. The realm of tears had always been mine. He held his composure for a few seconds then began to sob out loud.
I was dumbfounded. Before me in the grass sat this incorrigible creature falling apart. A fiend, pale and shivering, covered in weeds and mud and slime, weeping like a lost child. It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. I found myself weeping with him and for the first time since I’d come here, it wasn’t for me.
I wanted to be kind to him in that moment. It really was a beautiful day, too beautiful to be tainted with any more hateful words. The sky was
