[ there's a pang of gratefulness, relief, but also...pain and shame and embarrassment. ]

...I haven't had friends in a long time. I haven't...cared about anyone in well over a decade, before coming here. It's...nice. I forgot how nice it could be.

And how terrifying.

I...the whole time I've been here, I'd had to relearn everything about being a person. Including how to make, and keep, friends. And how doing certain things can affect them.

Somehow, I ended up with friends, people I cared about, again for the first time in years, and when I realized I screw up, I just. I didn't know how to deal with it. All I knew was that I didn't want to lose what little I had all over again.