It's a lot of internal fear. For both of us. Sometimes for similar reasons. Neither of us have really...experienced something like this. And we're both afraid we're going to bollocks it up. Better to quit while ahead. [He sighs into his mug.] It's just something to...work through, slowly. Therapy is even occasionally helpful. Helps clear my head, a decluttering.

[The mug is set down, and he leans on a kitchen counter for a few moments, lips licked, gaze distant.] I fought for this. To be this again. But I can't say I don't sometimes miss that blissful, happy feeling when I didn't realize anything had changed. I felt like a...better boyfriend. If I could just stop being upset all the time.

I say this because I trust you. Because even if the circumstances, the triggers, are different, I still understand where you are. Even after how brusquely you treated me and violently you'd treated York, I trust that you're you. Because you are. Just...with something else worming around your head.