As beautiful as this chapter, is, it somewhat proves the writer, even with their greatness of portraying Van's sadness and pain, has never actually experienced said pain themselves. For those that have grown up the way that Van supposedly has, it's almost like a bingo card gimme to constantly say "I'm sorry" when any kind of confrontation happens. To over-generalize you can almost tell the level of abuse somebody suffered as a child by what level of stress it takes for them to say Im sorry (according to my therapist, she actually was the one to bring up possible abuse in my life as a child before I did specifically because of the amount of times I said "I'm sorry" for apparently no reason constantly).

mc has to break the fourth wall just to clarify he wasnt doing anything inapropriate