James Hayes

“People came and went from Connor's life like the pebbles one finds on the shore: turned continuously by the tide, or tossed firmly back into the ocean by the man himself. When he was younger, Connor had filled his pockets with all kinds of stones, big ones, grey ones, ones with tiny crystals and stripes. His shore had been bright, and vibrant, and he rushed to meet the tide every morning. Now, Connor’s arms were tired, his head heavy from the drugs, and his pockets were full of other things besides rocks. When Jack had rolled along, a stranger to those lonely, forgotten sands, everything had flipped on its axis. Suddenly, he was the pebble, spat out in white foam, a modest, lump of rock that any jaded person might have kicked along. Jack had been different. He had reached down, amongst the water’s debris and sticky sand, and plucked Connor from that shore. He had weighed Connor in his palm, turned him this way and that, and curved his fingers into his grooves and bumps. Whatever Jack saw in him that day, on that metaphorical spit of sand, Connor must have met his approval.”
― James Hayes, Solidarity