Bearclaw Valley it's whatever you say it is

For a teenager, Taylor did a fine job at standing in the back and looking sufficiently dangerous.
He thinks, if Ico liked my story, that shitty tired Frankenstein monster of truths and lies, he'll like any story. 
He thinks, my life, calling it a story, it's an insult to every story out there.
He thinks, What a tragedy. What a shitshow. All these boys who've lost their families. I wish my family would leave me alone.
Tsk, tsk, tsk, Taylor shakes his head and frowns as Merrick elaborates on the story-family's failures. It's almost grotesque, how he does it. You can't tell whether he is trying to act as the protagonist or if he is reacting to the series of events as a spectator, or both.
The way Merrick talks makes him feel strangely at peace. He notices the nuances. Like it was as if he had meant to say something else, but replaced the word with free at the very last second. And how he had said home.