Elisha was really, he thought, not good at being in a relationship. He never had been. He'd never had one that wasn't either a power game or a complete disaster, and his own therapist told him that his relationship with Bastian - which had been Sieben's real name - had colored for him the way relationships worked. He'd manipulated Hadyn because he'd been manipulated himself.

Then, too, his PTSD had been...bad the last time he and Hadyn had been dating. Debilitatingly bad, at times.

"Okay," he said after a long moment of watching Hadyn. "I'll do my best. I might not always succeed. But," he aded. "On your side - you can't shut me out when this happens." And they shouldn't pretend that Hadyn didn't, he thought.