“I’ve never fidgeted with my hands so much in my goddamn life,” I mutter as Jesse and I make our way up the drive.

“Here,” he says, handing me the bottle of wine I brought as a gift.

I smile at him, appreciating the grin on his face. “You’re loving how uncomfortable I am right now, aren’t you?”

“You know how you’re always telling me how adorable I am? This is pretty adorable on you right now.”

He earns a laugh.

It’s not just meeting his parents that has me a nervous wreck. There’s a lot of shit running around in my mind, frustrating me, including an exercise my therapist gave me last week, one that put me on edge the moment he told me about it. I’m supposed to complete it by tomorrow, but I haven’t mentioned it to Jesse because it’s been playing in my head so much.

As we reach the door, it opens before we have a chance to knock, letting me know his parents were clearly waiting for us to arrive, and there they are—Charlotte, with big wide eyes, and Stan smiling beside her.

“Eric, so nice to meet you,” Charlotte says. We greet and hug, even though hugs make me a little tense. It’s something I push through when offered.

Stan offers a warm handshake. “Come on in, come on in,” he tells me. “I’m finishing up the roast.”

We head into the kitchen. As we do, I notice their tastes, their decor very traditional, as I would have expected.

The dinner goes well, us laughing, talking, joking. But as we’re interacting, I can’t help but wonder what they must think about me. They’re friendly, but surely in the backs of their minds there must be the judgment that what I did to Ty was so wrong and unlike anything they could imagine doing to their own child. Must be easy for anyone on the outside to judge us, although even as I think that, I recognize they’re being as hospitable as anyone could possibly be to me, something I deeply appreciate.

They’re kind, generous, warm people. These are the spitting images of the sort of people who live up to the expectations of everything Jesse said—about their kindness, their ability to see the good soul he was, back when no one else wanted him, and I have to admit that even thinking about that, the idea of someone causing Jesse pain stirs a heat and a fire in my chest. The idea that anyone could ever make him feel unwanted, or like he isn’t the amazing man I know him to be, horrifies me, and in a way, it’s another reminder of how cruel this world can be.

But we’re fighters.

That’s how we got to where we are today, each of us in our own way, although we have our weaknesses, me especially.

After we finish up with the Morgans’ dinner, Jesse and I head back to the car. He has this uneasy expression on his face as we get in and I reach for my seat belt.

“They loved you,” he tells me.

“They were incredible. They were everything you had led me to believe and more.”

“Then why do you still seem so off?”

God, he can read me so well. It bothers me exactly how well he can read me, because I don’t want him to know, don’t want him to catch on to the thing that’s really bothering me.

“Does this have anything to do with tomorrow?” His voice has grown softer, like he’s trying to sound as sincere as he can so as not to rouse my defensiveness—something I want to push between us to get him to back off.

I release the seat belt and grip the steering wheel.

“I would rather not talk about it, if that’s okay.” And saying those words, speaking them out loud, reminds me of what a coward I am—what a coward I’ve always been.

Jesse gets quiet for a moment, and I don’t have the heart to check out his expression. He means well, I remind myself, yet it feels like he’s punched me in the gut. I’m waiting for him to say something, to push me, and if he does, I’m certain I’ll snap. I won’t be able to handle it, not tonight.

He reaches across the console and takes my hand. “It’s okay, Eric. I’m here for you.”

As is his way, I relax, feel less guarded and a little stupider about how difficult I’m making all this.

Jesse turns on an episode of Rocks and Hard Places, and we start talking about their discussion about some viruses and bacteria that basically brainwash their hosts, which makes for an easy distraction.

Still, I can tell, even as I am able to finally look at his expression, he’s holding back. He wants to help me, but I’m not ready—not yet.

When we get back to the condo, I shower up, my mind fixated on the thing that has added to the stress of meeting his parents—this meeting with the therapist tomorrow, a meeting I’d rather cancel than do this stupid exercise. It’s useless. What’s the point? I keep telling myself. It’s not going to help anything to relive it.

These are the same excuses I’ve told myself since it happened—the ones I have for not sharing my story except for one night when I was so weak, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

In this moment, I regret sharing it with Jesse. Not because he was the wrong person—or that he’s been anything short of amazing since I told him—but because it feels like he’s the only thing that makes me want to fight this again when all I want is to hide it from myself the way I’ve been so good at hiding it for so long.

When I get out of the shower, I throw on some pajama bottoms and a tank top before heading into the living room.

Jesse’s working on a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table. He’s real good at those, finding the pieces, knowing where they fit. It reminds me of how well he knows me. The pieces are all there, and Jesse’s the only one I’ve ever known who’s able to find out how they go together.

He glances up, and I see that expression, like in the car, like he knows there’s more to what I’m doing than I’m willing to admit.

God, I want to hide.

At the same time, this reminds me of how much I want him, to have him in a way that requires me to be honest with myself, requires a courage I haven’t been able to discover before him.

I kneel on the other side of the coffee table and start picking up pieces. I want to talk to him about it, but the words…I can’t find them right now. Everything seems so stupid, but not talking about it is almost as bad…if not worse.

“I’d heard before about that fungus that brainwashes the ants,” Jesse says. “It’s crazy to think of how fucked up nature can be.”

He’s trying to chat about the podcast, but I blurt out, “It’s this exercise.” I forced myself to say something—anything—that would give me the strength to reveal this thing that’s weighing on me.

Jesse’s gaze meets mine, and I wonder if he’s thrown by how I randomly dropped it into conversation like that.

“What is the exercise?” he asks.

“It’s this stupid thing. I’m supposed to write down my experience, the one I told you about that night—a detailed account. My therapist said that sometimes this first time can be without much detail, that it could read like a police report of the event, because it’s hard to process the emotions. But he wants me to get it down, and I don’t want to.”

I feel as if I told him, Because I’m a coward…because I’m weak…because I can’t do this.

“Eric,” he says. I take a moment to appreciate my name on his lips once again. “That’s totally understandable, and I’m so sorry you’ve been carrying this on your own all week. If I knew, I would have—”

“I didn’t want you to know. It shouldn’t be this fucking hard. It’s a stupid thing that happened, and I should be able to sit down at my fucking desk and take the ten minutes to get it down, but I have a million reasons why not to, and I’ve kept putting it off. Today I was sitting in my office, thinking I could cancel my appointment tomorrow. I could reschedule it. I don’t have to do any of this.”

“Did you cancel it?”

I shake my head.

“Why?”

“I understand that’s not the right thing to do. Regardless of all the reasons I have for not following through with this, it’s a step in the right direction, but it’s a step I’m not ready to take.”

Jesse reaches across the table, setting his hand on mine. “But you don’t have to take it on your own, Eric. I’m right here.”

“I’ve tried since last week, so many times, but I’m sitting in my office on my own, thinking of all the things I could write, where to start, and it’s too much.”

His gaze wanders for a moment before he looks at me again. “What if I was in your office with you? Not so that I could see the page.” He says that part quickly, as though he wants to be clear that he’s not trying to invade my privacy. “Do you think it would help, or do you think it would make it harder? I don’t want to do anything that makes it more difficult.”

I could cry right now. Part of what makes it so difficult is—when I sit in that office, trying to write it down—I feel on my own all over again. I was oppressed by that feeling as I started to write the words, being transported back to this dark place where no one could hear my pain or my struggle or understand that cruel and twisted feeling of betrayal.

I couldn’t do that again, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that I’m not by myself this time. Jesse already knows my truth. I have an ally.

“Would you do that?” I ask. It’s not that I think he wouldn’t be there for me. It’s just, I am willing to admit that I need help.

Jesse rises to his feet and holds his hand out. “Come on. Let’s do this.”

As I take his hand and he helps me to my feet, I feel my strength returning. We walk into my office, this place that the past few days, when I’ve been trying this exercise, has felt so oppressive to me.

Jesse leads the way. He rearranges my desk, putting up a folder to block his view of me writing. He pulls up a chair beside the desk, all this seemingly by instinct, by his awareness of what I could need in such a moment. Then he looks at me once again and asks, “Do you think this will help? So I can’t see what you’re writing, but be here.”

“That will help a lot. Thank you.”

“You don’t think I’m doing anything wrong by being here for this, that I’m hindering your progress in any way?”

“No. Troy said it’s likely I’ll have to write out what happened that night a lot, as part of the healing process. Getting it down will help, and, Jesse, I’m not strong enough to do it tonight. Not on my own.”

“Hey,” he says. “Didn’t someone tell me that no one gets to where they are without a little help?”

I remember him saying those same words to me that night when he held me in his arms and reassured me I wasn’t alone, when he pulled this demon out of me, exorcized me of it for a moment. Even though the experience lingers with me, so does Jesse. That’s something worth appreciating.

“That’s right,” I say, choking on the words. I hate how weak I feel right now. I hate that I’m still that sixteen-year-old kid—confused, scared, worried, nervous. All these emotions come back so quickly, a mix of emotional grief and physical numbness.

Jesse waits until I’m ready to sit down, and when I do, he sits in the chair adjacent to mine, behind that folder barrier, which is more of a barrier than I want to have between us…ever.

“Are you okay with me putting my hand on you, or do you think that will be too much?” he asks.

“I would like it right now, but I don’t know about once I get started. I might need you to take it off.”

“It’s fine, Eric. You have every right to push it away. I’m here, in whatever way you need me.” He sets his hand on my leg, and it offers me an extra boost of confidence. Maybe what I needed. “You’re strong enough to do this, Eric. You did it once, when you told me. You’ve talked about it with your therapists. You’ve got this.”

Easier said than done. I grab the picture of me and Ty off the desk, open the drawer, and swap the picture with the notebook I’ve attempted to write this exercise in…again and again and again.

So many torn pages from my failed attempts at doing this.

I set the notebook down in front of me, and I feel bad that I’m making sure Jesse can’t see it. Not that he would try, but this is such a vulnerable thing—too vulnerable—that I don’t think I can handle him seeing my thoughts written out.

I pull a pen out of my case beside my laptop. Then I stare at the empty page.

It’s so masochistic that I have to do this exercise to make myself better. The person causing me pain now isn’t my uncle—it’s me. I’m the one who has to put these words down, force myself to relive the horror, the terror of what happened. What kind of fucked-up universe do we live in where this is part of the healing process, where the only way to escape pain is to relive it again and again and again? Intellectually, I know it has to be this way, just based on what it felt like when I revealed the truth to Jesse.

That won’t make it any easier, though.

I take a breath.

Like before, I don’t know what to write or where to start, so I put the pen to page and go for it.

I don’t return to that night, but to that day, when I was relaxing on their couch downstairs, laughing at some cartoons that were on. Sixteen and watching cartoons seems so childish now, but it gave me some relief after having ditched my asshole dad. I always felt like I had to be such an adult with my father hardly being attentive. It was nice to let go and laugh at some stupid characters doing ridiculous shit to each other.

As I write my way to that night, I stop, then dig my pen into the sheet of paper, driving it in. Anger wells up within me—so much fury and hate. What began as weakness and guilt and shame has transformed into unfettered rage, and I haven’t fucking written anything about the assault yet.

I stop, lean back, take a breath. I can’t bring myself to look at Jesse right now, but he can’t know how much it helps knowing he’s here.

I slide my hand onto his and grip. He grips back.

I can do this. I can do this with him here, I remind myself.

“You’re not on your own,” Jesse says. He’s found the right words at the right time.

I take a shaky breath and pick up the pen again. I’m getting this down tonight if it fucking kills me. Filled with determination and a renewed sense of confidence, I press forward. I have so many false starts and tear a few pages out before tossing them aside.

I begin, finally, with the moment it happened.

I see my uncle coming into the room where I stayed when I visited my aunt. In my naivety, I assumed he was going to ask me to go see a movie with him, maybe invite me to go out to eat. As he sat down beside me on the bed, he wore an expression that even now, as I look back, doesn’t seem malicious or angry or sinister. He looked like my friend.

As I describe that, I dig my pen into the paper once again. I find myself running it up and down, repeatedly driving into the paper, ripping it away, feeling like I’m right back where I started.

I don’t realize until my rage settles that I’m crying…and my face is on fire.

I take a few more breaths.

Jesse must be tired of sitting here, but as I look at him, he’s still right there, his expression as supportive as ever.

You’re not on your own.

I start once again, getting a little further this time, and as I reach that instant, that first touch as my uncle slid his hand up my leg, an instinctual reaction, this crazed part of me that’s so furious, forces me to push at Jesse’s hand.

He said it was fine to push him away, so I start to, but why can’t I let go of him?

Because I don’t want to let go.

As the conflict rages in my brain, this painful knot tightens in my chest.

My desire to hold him outweighs my need to push him away, so I cling to it as I continue writing, forcing that same horror through my mind as I live it.

It all feels so real, but it’s like I can only remember fractions of the incident. There are these vague recollections of the most painful parts, but the only thing that feels so real are the feelings—the pain my body experienced and the pain I felt inside as I thought, But he’s my friend.

I couldn’t have taken up more than half a page, but it feels as though I’ve been writing this for such a fucking long time. Before I know it, I’ve reached the end, and I turn to Jesse, feeling the tears dripping off my chin, still rushing down my face, as vulnerable as I’ve ever been.

I blurt out the words, “He was my friend.”

I move toward Jesse, hooking my arms around him. I need to cling to something right now, someone, and as I feel his hold, I feel like I can breathe again. My thoughts are everywhere, dwelling on the pain, this crippling agony within me. I can hardly hear Jesse as he whispers softly, “I’m here, and I’m so sorry he did that. I’m so sorry he made you feel this way.”

My body trembles feverishly. There’s this tug-of-war within me. A part of me doesn’t want any physical contact right now. Jesse’s touch alarms something within me from everything I’ve worked up, yet there’s a part of me that won’t let him go, that can’t let him go, because I need him so much. I need him more than I need to push him away.

“It’s okay,” Jesse says. “I love you. I love you, I love you.”

After he spends some time soothing me, he asks, “Do you want to go lie down?”

“Please don’t make me go anywhere. Please let’s just stay here,” I say.

“I’m not going to make you do anything, Eric.”

It offers me an assurance I need right now, for some deep-seated fear that was awakened as I worked out that exercise.

After I calm down, I let Jesse guide me into the bedroom, and we lie together, gazing at one another, my hand on his face, my thumb sliding across his flesh, touching him the way I want to touch him right now.

“You did it, Eric. You got through it.”

Even though I did, I know I couldn’t have done any of it without him.