Then, he threw his arms around me and held onto me so damn tight he practically crushed the air right out of my lungs.

Jess stepped away, giving us a moment with each other. His heart was hammering, his chest swelling with every deep breath.

“Lucas —” I started slowly, but he wasn’t about to let me apologize.

“Don’t you fucking say you’re sorry,” he said. “Just don’t…don’t leave like that again. Please.” He lowered his voice even more, barely above a whisper, but the pain in his words was impossibly loud. “I can’t watch you walk out the door on me, Manson. I don’t care what you have to do to stay. I’ll listen to you yell all damn day if you need to. Just don’t walk out on me.”

I nodded against him, knotting my hands into the back of his shirt. It had hurt him, frightened him, probably far more than he’d ever say. “I won’t. I’m not going anywhere.”

He cleared his throat as we parted, hurriedly scrubbing his hand over his face so nothing remained but his usual stony expression. He nodded abruptly, reaching his arm out for Jess and slipped it around her shoulders as she took my hand again.

Jason was sitting on the porch when we returned, chewing his thumbnail down to nothing. Bo was beside him, and I expected him to bark at me again, but he wagged his tail and licked my hand when I scratched his head.

“Sorry, buddy,” I said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Glad to see they dragged you back,” Jason said, embracing me as he got up from the porch. “I was about to go after you myself if you didn’t show up in the next five minutes.”

I clapped his shoulder, finally allowing myself a little laugh. “I didn’t flee the country; I just walked down the street.”

“Yeah, well, you went by yourself.” Jason frowned. “That’s not supposed to happen. If you’re going to flee anywhere, you better damn well take us with you.”

I’d shed enough tears for one day; I wasn’t about to have him getting me in my feelings again. So I didn’t say how much that meant to me. I couldn’t find the words to tell them that they’d proven wrong every awful thing my brain wanted to believe. But if I couldn’t say it, then I’d find a way to show it.

If I wanted to keep being here for them like they were for me, I needed to face my demons.