I'm not going to apologize to you about this over text. You're owed better than that, unless that's how you'd prefer it. Better than this, too, I know. But I didn't want to you to bump into me at work if you weren't ready and I didn't know how to broach that without implying an obligation for you to talk about it.
[ It sounds coarse, as academic as everything else he says these days, words forming points forming paragraphs. He can see it happening. He has no idea how to stop it, how to get on the level Nate's on now.
The problem is with feeling bad, but only insofar as knowing that he feels bad had informed his decision not to engage with those feelings. Remorse as he's manifested it in the past has consequences he can't afford now— the need for recovery and, more to the point here, a lack of emotional control. The danger in feeling and the expression of it is that words spoken with emotion influence people in ways you can't predict. Emotion manipulates without meaning to.
Manipulating people in very direct, abjectly horrible ways is fresh enough in his memory that he'd rather never do it again, to any extent, if he can knowingly avoid it. But if this is the result, maybe he's going to have to reconsider his options.
Should've just fucking asked him if he wanted to talk about it in the first place. In hindsight that might not have been such a big, bad, terrible thing to do.
We can't move forward if we keep feeling bad about what we can't take back. Forward it is then. Or if not forward, then at least adjacent. Somewhere other than stuck in the same spot, a river flowing around a rock. ]
[ Nate thinks Stephen might need to take a leaf out of the same book he peddled on Nate back when Sam arrived, but he knows he's in no state to say so without coming across like a total asshole. There's just the need for space, critical to recovery. Until he can at least get the right thoughts in his head without the kneejerk desire to immediately delete Stephen's messages from his inbox.
But that's Nate's problem. ]
i think the only thing i need right now is time.
[ And a really good disguise he can wear out of doors. ]
[ It's a fair request, and all he'd been intending to give. The state of his attempt is a fairly sure sign that, in spite of all his determined assertions otherwise, Nate might not be the only one who needs more time.
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no subject
I'm not going to apologize to you about this over text. You're owed better than that, unless that's how you'd prefer it. Better than this, too, I know. But I didn't want to you to bump into me at work if you weren't ready and I didn't know how to broach that without implying an obligation for you to talk about it.
[ It sounds coarse, as academic as everything else he says these days, words forming points forming paragraphs. He can see it happening. He has no idea how to stop it, how to get on the level Nate's on now.
The problem is with feeling bad, but only insofar as knowing that he feels bad had informed his decision not to engage with those feelings. Remorse as he's manifested it in the past has consequences he can't afford now— the need for recovery and, more to the point here, a lack of emotional control. The danger in feeling and the expression of it is that words spoken with emotion influence people in ways you can't predict. Emotion manipulates without meaning to.
Manipulating people in very direct, abjectly horrible ways is fresh enough in his memory that he'd rather never do it again, to any extent, if he can knowingly avoid it. But if this is the result, maybe he's going to have to reconsider his options.
Should've just fucking asked him if he wanted to talk about it in the first place. In hindsight that might not have been such a big, bad, terrible thing to do.
We can't move forward if we keep feeling bad about what we can't take back. Forward it is then. Or if not forward, then at least adjacent. Somewhere other than stuck in the same spot, a river flowing around a rock. ]
If you need anything. Anything, Nate.
And I'm sorry again. For this conversation.
no subject
But that's Nate's problem. ]
i think the only thing i need right now is time.
[ And a really good disguise he can wear out of doors. ]
but i'll let you know. thanks.
no subject
In respect of it there's no answer for now. ]