'Done with saying goodbye'. He thinks, but doesn't say, that he doesn't think there is such a thing. It's rare to have people who will be with you forever, whatever forever means to each individual.

"Occasionally, yes," he finally says, his voice contemplative. "In my recovery. I was frustrated that I seemed to be going backwards, or that I'd made no progress at all. That I was still weak to the same things, the same flaws, the same old wounds."

Frustration had been a slow, crawling thing for him. There had been numbness, horror, grief. All sorts of things. But it had bloomed, steadily, until the whole world seemed a tool to inconvenience him, until every little mistake seemed like the end.

"I wanted things to be simple, organized. Lines curving upwards, steadily, until there was nothing else to do or to be except the cleanest, most whole version of myself. But nothing that lives is so orderly as that."

His mouth quirks in a thin, dry smile.

"It took me a long time to accept how messy I was, and would continue to be. Despite my best efforts. All I could do was struggle not to be angry at myself for it."