Re: Travis/Thomas
"And we've back to square one. You can have expectations when you have parents, money, position, but when you have nothing, surviving is hard enough. There's no room for expectations. There's no room to hope that your brother isn't doing something illegal, because he probably is. There's no room to wish that you won't have to be the one to shoot him, even though your partner is there and takes the shot. You grow up expecting nothing and no expectations are put on you." There was a sort of freedom in poverty, something that he understood well.
"In a way, I'm sure you're life was harder. You might have had everything, but you lived in your own jail. I don't deny that my life wasn't the greatest, but once I got old enough, started high school, life was in my hands. I made the decisions. Not always the right ones, but they were still mine." He thought about those days and life in the street. "You know we did have one expectation: that we'd have each other's back and that only happened with friends, real friends, and not the gangs."
Travis looked at Thomas, studying him for a moment. "There are expectations here, but really it boils down to helping one another. Maybe with just that one expectation, you can stop living up to whatever expectations existed home and just be 'TJ' instead of Thomas Hammond, and yes, you've told me that it's no happening, even if not in so many words, but then you don't believe that I want to be your friend for no reason. We'll see who's right."