It was in those short few words Liam realised how he had made Paxton feel leaning on him like that in England. He hadn't seen it like that, and now he felt like a cunt for it. The PTSD meant he struggled to see many things beyond his own grief, especially when his depression was at its worst. Then for Liam to have turned around and said he was trying to sort things with Damien? What a mistake that had been. A hard and painful mistake to learn, that you try to live in the past when your present doesn't want to figure out how to turn back the clock. He should have known nothing would eventuate from Damien's return when it had turned stale in the past. It only all made him feel worse, and made him begin to yearn for something that was real again.

"No," he murmured and wanted to make sure he dug right down deep to where his soul had locked his heart up under secure lock and key. It was beyond those layers of trauma and depression, so it was never an easy feat. Especially not when the last times he had tried, his heart got broken. "I don't know if I should have asked that of you back then when I was so messed up. I was so sure it would cure a bit of something inside, when in reality, there was no easy cure for it. It just felt like that was the biggest road block to everything in my life. I panicked and you were the only person in the whole world I felt like I could trust not to hurt me at that point. It was fucked up. I'm sorry it hurt you. I didn't know you felt like this..."