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While I pressed the tissue to my face, Beck said, __an I tell you something? There are a lot of empty boxes in your head, Sam.__ looked at him, quizzical. Again, it was a strange enough concept to hold my attention.__here are a lot of empty boxes in there, and you can put things in them._ Beck handed me another tissue for the other side of my face.My trust of Beck at that point was not yet complete; I remember thinking that he was making a very bad joke that I wasn__ getting. My voice sounded wary, even to me. __hat kinds of things?___ad things,_ Beck said. __o you have a lot of sad things in your head?___o,_ I said.Beck sucked in his lower lip and released it slowly. __ell, I do.__his was shocking. I didn__ ask a question, but I tilted toward him.__nd these things would make me cry,_ Beck continued. __hey used to make me cry all day long.__ remembered thinking this was probably a lie. I could not imagine Beck crying. He was a rock. Even then, his fingers braced against the floor, he looked poised, sure, immutable.__ou don__ believe me? Ask Ulrik. He had to deal with it,_ Beck said. __nd so you know what I did with those sad things? I put them in boxes. I put the sad things in the boxes in my head, and I closed them up and I put tape on them and I stacked them up in the corner and threw a blanket over them.___rain tape?_ I suggested, with a little smirk. I was eight, after all.Beck smiled, a weird private smile that, at the time, I didn__ understand. Now I knew it was relief at eliciting a joke from me, no matter how pitiful the joke was. __es, brain tape. And a brain blanket over the top. Now I don__ have to look at those sad things anymore. I could open those boxes sometime, I guess, if I wanted to, but mostly I just leave them sealed up.___ow did you use the brain tape?___ou have to imagine it. Imagine putting those sad things in the boxes and imagine taping it up with the brain tape. And imagine pushing them into the side of your brain, where you won__ trip over them when you__e thinking normally, and then toss a blanket over the top. Do you have sad things, Sam?__ could see the dusty corner of my brain where the boxes sat. They were all wardrobe boxes, because those were the most interesting sort of boxes _ tall enough to make houses with _ and there were rolls and rolls of brain tape stacked on top. There were razors lying beside them, waiting to cut the boxes and me back open.__om,_ I whispered.I wasn__ looking at Beck, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him swallow.__hat else?_ he asked, barely loud enough for me to hear. __he water,_ I said. I closed my eyes. I could see it, right there, and I had to force out the next word. __y _ My fingers were on my scars.Beck reached out a hand toward my shoulder, hesitant. When I didn__ move away, he put an arm around my back and I leaned against his chest, feeling small and eight and broken.__e,_ I said.