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It's like splinters, you see. The little ones are the ones that get under your skin, because the big ones don't fit. And the skin grows around them, and gets used to them being there, and all of a sudden it hurts to get them out -
Or maybe they grow bigger, and -
Perhaps splinters isn't the right metaphor. Stop; try again.
It's like weeds in a garden. One day, there are a few, and you think, Oh well, I can pull them out tomorrow. But they grow, and grow until it's too late and the weeds are the garden, just as beautiful in their own way.
He hadn't planned on feeling these things, after all. Hadn't planned to love the boy.
But Cross Marian doesn't think even weeds, tenacious as they are, can survive this.
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