Quotation

He had pasted on his face a smirk with which Sarat was well acquainted….It was the smirk of knowing he’d left her with an impossible choice – step into the river of filth or be labeled a coward. Even then, at such a young age, she understood that smile for what it was: a mask atop fear, a balm for the crippling insecurity of childhoods deeply damaged. They were fragile boys who wore it, and their fragility demanded menace. Pg. 127