“Fair enough.” I breathe again. “I’m sorry, Josh. I really am.”

“Well, Neil, I’m not going to fault you for things that you weren’t comfortable doing.”

“You’re going to make this as hard as possible, aren’t you? I’m sorry for the things that I said to you last week, how cruel I was to you. You’re one of my best friends, and I think that I was just afraid. I don’t know.”

“A classic self-sabotage.”

“Pretty much,” I say. “I don’t want to sound mean … but I wasn’t in love with you. I couldn’t give you what you wanted. I couldn’t say it back to you. And I think that I didn’t understand my own feelings.”

Josh nods.

I keep talking. “It wasn’t going to be a case of wrong place, wrong time. I’m just the wrong person. And you deserve someone who can love you back.”

“I can see that now.” Josh sighs. “I owe you an apology too. I should’ve respected your boundaries, believed you when you said you didn’t have feelings for me. But you shouldn’t say what you just said like you’re incapable of love.”

“What do you mean?”

“You love, Neil. And I don’t like watching you pretend that you don’t.”

I’m not sure what to say to him.

“You’re too hard on yourself,” he presses.

“Maybe if I wasn’t such a fuckup, I’d get to ease up.”

“You make mistakes—we all do. We’re human.”

“Okay, Philosophy 101. I mean, there’s no denying I’m a fuckup. Look at the damage I’ve caused.”

“Yeah … that scene with your mom was brutal to watch.”

“I’ll be lucky if she ever wants to talk to me again,” I say. “Same can be said for Wyatt. I like hurting people, I guess.”

Josh looks at me seriously for a second before saying, “I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to try to not get mad at me at first, okay?”

I nod.

“You really hurt me. It really sucked, those things that you said to me. And seeing you and Wyatt together so quickly, it was enough to convince me that there were some serious differences in how we saw each other.”

Each word is like a stab in my gut, twisting the knife deeper and deeper.

But I have to listen to this. I have to know how badly I hurt him.