Every day Daring understood his parents less and less.
"Why am I never good enough for her?"
His heart broke at those tear-stained words, just like every other time he'd heard them. How many times had Darling asked him that question growing up? How many times had Dexter?
How many times had he stayed up at night wondering that same thing?
And this time it was so much worse. This time it was his son, curled up into himself, crying, wanting and needing and struggling to live up to his mother's expectations. And he didn't understand it. How could he ever understand doing that to a child? His child?
And he knew he hadn't done a good job of protecting them. Not Dexter or Darling or even his own children. He knew that. He knew he had failed the second he let Apple dye their hair black. But that hadn't stopped him from hoping that, somehow, they would avoid feeling this pain.
Maybe there had been no way to prevent this, maybe this was something every kid went through and had to learn to deal with. That couldn't be true. Daring would never do that. There were parents who wouldn't do that.
And yet he had a hand in this.
He pulled his son into a bone-crushing hug, wishing he could suck the pain and these horrible feelings out of him and make everything okay. "You are perfect, and I'm so proud of you."
He poured everything into his words, the words he had always wanted to hear. He made sure they rang with every bit of truth he had. They would never not be true.
"Thanks, Dad." And he could hear the hollow disbelief ringing in his son's voice. And he had failed.
Daring had failed again.