what is the internal conflict of chapters 5-7 of dear justyce

When Quan’s father is arrested, he is devastated: “That night he got arrested turned everything upside down. I knew things were about to get bad because my dad had been like the duct tape holding our raggedy shit together. He paid for a lot and gave my mom money, and he really was the reason I stayed out of trouble. The minute that van drove away with him in it, I felt…doomed” (26). Comparing his father to the duct tape that holds the rest of his messy life together is the perfect simile because without his father in his life, everything starts to fall apart.