People confused him.
They were angry and often mean. He had trouble trying to understanding the other kids. Often the limited interactions he had with other kids ended with him standing alone in the middle of the road, shirt dusty and dirt smeared on his face.
The world was a loud and chaotic place.
He didn't much care for it.
He preferred the company of horses.
They were quiet, kind and funny. He liked to watch them through the trees, watch them run through the fields. Watch the colts jump and play. Sometimes he wonders if maybe he was just born in the wrong body. Like what if God meant for him to be a horse but his soul was put into a human's instead. He had asked his mother once. His ears still ring from her yelling. Sometimes he wishes he could turn into a horse. Then maybe the world would make better sense.
As he got older he learned to keep those thoughts to himself.
The jeers of children turned into the insults of adults. Whispers and rumors. So he did all the things that was expected of boys and men. But he never quite got it right. He couldn't hold his liquor. Didn't like to fight or hunt. He liked fishing though. So he wasn't a complete pox on the state of man.
Or whatever the priest had said.
Still things weren't all bad. The Van Der Linde gang was nice for the most part. Except for the angry blonde haired lady and the balding man and uh, angry blonde haired man. But he got to work with horses so that was alright in his books. And there was a nice pretty lady who was teaching him to read. He liked her voice. So two good things. Even though Horseshoe Overlook didn't look like any kinda horseshoe he's seen but maybe it was lucky.
Things can only go up from here.