The things I’d shared. The way in which I’d so foolishly opened up. Dr. Foster had been a third party in whatever Ethan and I were starting to have, and to think of how I had let my guard down and told her about things I’d never admitted to, even to myself, was excruciating to consider. She knew it all. She knew it. Maybe Ethan was right, maybe it didn’t really matter that she knew, but then why did it feel the way it did? And I understood. In the back of my mind, I understood this was something we could probably survive, but I couldn’t help but think of him. About what it meant…for him.

Had I outed him? Did she mind that he was with a guy? That I was that guy? What did she think when I talked about how he made me feel? About his tastes, his virginity, and how I took it? Oh my God, I told the mother of the guy I’d deflowered that I’d done it, and as sick as it sounded, she’d actually given me advice regarding how I was to bring up the subject during another hookup.

Oh. My. God.

Why had I let him get so close? Why had I let him see me the way he did?

I couldn’t help it. No, that was a fool’s answer. Of course I could’ve. At least, I should’ve. I knew it was a bad idea to bring him into my lonely, let him enter it and find what it truly was like in here. I knew it, yet I allowed it. Not just because he was impossible to ignore but because he looked at me in a way that seemed so lovely, in all its innocence. He looked at me and saw not the breaks, not the cracks, but beyond them, and he somehow found beauty in it. How?

It didn’t matter. It had to stop. Maybe the way it had happened hadn’t been ideal, but I didn’t think I could have, in all my selfishness, pushed him away without some kind of incentive, some sort of excuse. Because I knew this was an excuse. It had its merits, sure, but it hid something larger, something deeper. The way I’d lost myself in him was dangerous. For him, more so than for me. And he had no idea how dangerous it was. In the past three years, the people in my life had either been disappointed or hurt by my actions. Regardless of whether they’d had any role in it or not, sharing the load, it had still happened. It had happened, and I’d tried to prevent it from getting worse, but I’d failed every single time. But him? I couldn’t fail him. To imagine him looking at me with anything remotely resembling hurt or disappointment was simply not an option.