"To ease my burden, Felix has always been far too sensible for his own good. He hasn't shed a single tear since he was eight, and he never complained to me about being tired or in pain. He would only ever tell me good news, never the bad, and refused to tell me about any of his difficulties."
"I remember when he was in middle school, the class troublemakers bullied him because his grades were too good. They thought he was being pretentious, that he was acting all high and mighty and looking down on them for their poor grades. So they got some other delinquents from outside the school to help, and they cornered him in an alley after school and beat him up."
"What?" Sonia Quincy's heart clenched the moment she heard that.
