Elisha ducked his head with a slight smile, but then he looked away, across the bathroom into the living room. It was more Spartan than his and Elisha was not sure that it was a sign of style so much as mental state. "I pretended I didn't miss you," he finally said. "It was my idea, after all. And I told myself I was doing it for you, because I was too much of a mess for a twenty-one year old to want to tie himself. So if I missed you, it was my own damn fault."

It wasn't just Hadyn whose soul was damaged, and whose self-worth plummeted with the onset of a depressive episode. It had happened to Elisha too.

"But I was wrong," he said, looking over at Hadyn. "I should never have let you go, no matter how much we were fighting."