I think that this was one of your best chapters yet...I don't see Finn as broken, just temporarily lost. The raw emotion when he describes his childhood experiences through 6 foster homes was wrenching...the lock on the fridge...
And Walter, god bless his soul, and the hidden, unseen depths of his compassion, the perfect counterpoint to Lids angst..
It's the words we sometimes need to hear, in the manner that reaches one best... that makes the most sense...
“I’m broken, Walter,” he choked out, the confession torn from the deepest, most ashamed part of him. “I’m mean and I’m scared and I don’t know how to be anything else. I only know how to break things and run. I’m a fucking factory defect.”
“You ain’t broken,” Walter said, his voice leaving no room for argument. The hand on Finn’s knee tightened. “You’re just badly tuned. You’ve been runnin’ on the wrong fuel for too damn long. Fear. Anger. Survival. It burns hot, it’ll get you moving in a crisis, but it gums up the works. Carbon-fouls the valves. Ruins a good engine from the inside out.” He sighed, a world-weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of all his own quiet years. “That boy… Garrett. He made a choice. He’s tryin’ a different grade of fuel. He chose the quiet road. After the noise he’s been livin’ with, can you blame him?”
10 kids and a dog named K-9. I can only imagine what they might call a cat....
This next one sounds like it will be fun...
"I'm the town comptroller now," Oliver said. It sounded like a confession. "I make six figures. I have to manage the town’s decline, and my brother squandering the town’s budget. I have a 401k."
"That sounds nice," Tabby said politely.
"It’s awful," Oliver said. The words fell out of him like stones. "It’s... grey. Everything is grey. I look at spreadsheets all day and I help rich people stay rich and I feel like I’m slowly turning into drywall."