Scars and parenthood

There are many difficult scenarios a parent will encounter.... being a parent is the hardest job ever. You love them more than anything, whether you have 1 or 20 (if you have 20, I hope you are a teacher). When they feel pain, your heart breaks more than it has ever been broken before....
Today, I had to explain to Trevor that sometimes kids are mean. That quite often, in fact, kids are mean. Sometimes, even, when there is a kid you think is your friend and he is mean to you and disregards your feelings and tosses you aside, it is sometimes par for the course. Unfortunately....
Trevor was so incredibly sad. He cried for a few moments and then was back to being his incredible Trevor self.
Later today, at the gym, some other kids, three to be exact, were not nice to him..... as if he needed one more kid to be mean to him today. They 'killed' him by 'hitting' him in the head where his scar is. He had to sit out because this, obviously, had an effect on his behaved playing. He cried again.
When Trevor cries, not the fake cry, not the hurt cry so much but the silent, soul in pain, broken heart, one tear streams down his left cheek followed by one more on right, something inside me breaks along with him.
I had to explain to him again how kids can be mean and friends can be mean and it sucks but that is just kids. I hoped he would never be that way to one of his friends knowing how it felt, but that all of life would be others doing that to him.
He told me then that he thought Nick was still his friend but was just being rude today.... that he knows Nick is his friend.
I dont think Nick is his friend. I can not tell Trevor I do not think Nick is his friend.
I tell him that having a few wonderful friends is better than having a ton of kinda ok friends.... I know this because this is how I am. It may not be the super fabulous way for everyone but for me, having Jenn, Shane, Brian and Matt and a smattering of others are all I need. I keep a few close and others at bay. Maybe not super, again, but protecting. I know they are there for me and I am there for them..... some of them generally more than they are there for me but I am a caregiver, an anchor, a safety net. It is my job.
Still though, knowing that a few good friends may be better and may be what Trevor encounters, it is not even slightly easier to see his heart break and his ego squashed.
I no longer have the power to protect my baby. Since the day he was born I have had to let him lose on the world and, conversely, the world on him..... and have had to know I can not stop the scars he will surely have to live with, external and internal.