Oh.
My.
God. whoa.

You know, I reckon it probably was his fault, at least partly. Anyway, this is well written, and the sudden change at the end, after so much cotton wool, is very effective.

(And that upwards inflection at the end of every sentence? Extremely annoying. )

(I mean that it’s annoying in real life, not in your story. Of course, you already knew that. I’ll be going now.)