It's talk like that, the quiet validation that he isn't used to that gets him to quiet, frowning into his lap while he gathers himself.

"You know, I try very hard to be a good person, and to do what's right, because I feel like it's my duty. I have a mission, one I've always had, to prove that I could be successful without being any of the things my father is, but every time I make a mistake it counts against me." Every misstep is the proof he would point at and say 'you see, there? You weren't good enough.'

"So when I say everything, I mean it. It feels like everything...because he would look at the sum of it all, and do the math before I even opened my mouth to defend myself."