What she means: In the chapter where Neil is being tortured by his father he reaches up when his father is choking him and squeezing his cuts but stops before he touches him because he’s been conditioned from a young age that trying to stop his father/touching him he will get hurt even more. With Neil and Andrew’s relationship being based on trust and the fact that Neil can respect boundaries and asks before he touches Andrew, I wonder how Andrew would take it if he learnt that it’s probably partly because it was literally beaten into Neil when he was younger.
Nothing but My Aching Soul 