"Still in Purity?" He nodded. "Why'd you leave?" He was silent for a while, remembering. Remembering the woman who’d raised him and his brothers, who’d taken care of them, who’d worked herself to a nub, prematurely old, to try to give them what they needed, to give them a better chance than she’d ever had. Remembering the guilt he’d felt when he first realized just how much it was costing her to feed another mouth, to provide for another person. "I needed to get away," he said at last, disgusted by the note of suppressed emotion in his voice—the sound of weakness."I just wanted my own life, you know?"