Dear Justyce

“He feels a little bit bad, yeah: knowing Dasia and Gabe are still in the house makes his stomach hurt the way it always does when he finds himself faced with grown-people problems he can’t fix.”

Quan is only a child, and yet he feels guilty for abandoning his baby brother and sister when he is upset and trying to escape from the domestic abuse that is going on at his mother’s house. He is sucked into a world of adult problems, and instead of protecting him and his siblings, the adults are more concerned about fighting it out. Quan should not be facing “grown-people problems” at only nine years old, and he certainly should not be the one to protect the younger children in his house.

“I knew if I could be just like you, my dad would be proud of me.”

Quan’s relationship with his father is important to him, even after his father is taken away to prison. Quan looks at Justyce and believes that if Quan were like Justyce, his life would be better. While Quan doesn’t go into detail, it is hinted that he wishes he, like Justyce, had gone to a nice school and stayed out of trouble instead of getting caught up with Trey and Martel. Making his father proud is Quan’s main motivation as a child, and he lives with a constant feeling of shame because he believes his father’s love is conditional.