Lexi

“No—not the memory of his father but the fallout, the waves of loneliness, the sense of inadequacy, the pervasive, enduring gloom. The tiptoeing, the perilous sense that at any moment he might step wrong, might cause something to break, might awaken the beast inside his father’s chest. Might summon to life the titan who ruled over his happiness, who dwarfed his own diminished sense of self. He felt the acrid sense of fear, the thought that was not really a thought, but just the heightened sense of run. That fight-or-flight, bitter and rancid. The rage in his heart, thud-thudding with his pulse. The fear that his anger was inherited. That his own soul, like his father’s, was flawed.”
― Olivie Blake, The Atlas Paradox