"I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening."
Hayley experiences acute loneliness because she cannot safely share her troubles. She longs to enjoy the privilege and stability of her classmates at school, but she cannot because of her and her father's situation. She observes 'normal' life from a distance, with a certain degree of hesitance.
"People who have to announce that they are trustworthy deserve to be lied to."
Hayley has a lot of street sense. She has learned to distinguish a trustworthy adult from an attention-seeker, and the former are rare in her experience. She exercises scrutiny in order to protect her family from outsiders who would separate her from her dad, but Hayley goes about this scrutiny by putting up angry barriers between herself and interested parties.
"Having a friend made everything else suck less."
Although she is resistant at first, Hayley comes to rely upon Finn. She desperately craves stability in her life and he provides a home base for her, always available to listen and to help however possible, withholding judgement. Hayley's main problem is that she's young enough to be making things up as she goes along. With so much responsibility, she feels extremely isolated from any sort of support system, so Finn becomes an especially important person. He just reminds her that people can be trustworthy sometimes and doesn't require anything back from her.
