“What am I doing here, Damien?” I asked finally when the waitress had come back with mugs and Damien still hadn’t said a word.

“Having coffee.”

“Damien.”

“They also have pretty good pie,” he said. “I mean, I know you’re picky—”

“I am picky,” I said, “and I can give you the whole lecture about what makes the perfect pie crust, I always have it prepared—”

“Yippee.”

“—or you could just tell me why you texted me.”

He sighed.

“I’m leaving,” he said after a moment.

“What? You invited me here, you can’t just—”

“No.” He cut me off. “I’m not leaving here, right now. I’m leaving Boston.”

“Oh,” I said, a little surprised that this was reason enough for him to reach out after a month of radio silence and more than a bit confused.

“When will you be back?” I asked, feeling like it was my turn.

“I won’t,” he said and that was when I understood.

“Oh,” I said again.

“Mark—” He cleared his throat, like Mark’s name had gotten stuck there. “I’ve been asked to leave town, to leave everyone alone, and I—I’m going to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because for once in my goddamn life, I want to do something right,” he growled.

I didn’t want to say “oh” again, so I said nothing.

“It’s taken me a month, but I—there’s nothing keeping me here,” he said. “I don’t know what I was waiting for, what I was holding onto, but I know it’s finally … it’s time.”

“So … why did you ask me here?” I asked, still barely understanding what was happening.

“I wanted to say goodbye, I guess,” he said, shrugging a single shoulder. That was the first moment I took a really good look at Damien since sitting down. He looked better than when I last saw him, though that wasn’t a difficult metric to clear. His hair was clean, he was wearing a hoodie that actually looked like it had been purchased within the last year, and the bags under his eyes were … well, they were still there, but not quite as pronounced. Maybe my trip into his dreams had really helped.

“Do you want to leave?” I asked as I watched him rip a sugar packet and dump the whole thing into his coffee.

“What?”

“Do you actually want to go?” I asked again.

“I don’t know what I want,” he mumbled.

“Are you just going because you don’t know what else to do?”

“I mean, what else would I do?” he scoffed, taking a sip of his coffee and wincing.

“Not run away,” I suggested.

“I’m not running away,” he said. “I’ve been asked to leave. Repeatedly. By several different people.”

“But that’s not fair,” I said, shaking my head. “You can’t just be run out of your home.”