[ it is as if between one heartbeat and the next, charles' expression shifts; goes blank, something flashing in his eyes, sympathy and a terrible kind of understanding and an anger he stamps down nearly immediately; not at rafal, never at rafal.

but he knows a little bit of something about not feeling safe in your own family — there are scars on his back and in his soul that no time will ever erase. ]

... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you remember that. I — [ he pauses, then, swallows. looks down and away. ] I get it. And I'm so fucking sorry you had to grow up in a place like that.