"I had a complete meltdown.... not actually related to the breakup thing he did. Tried to do? I don't even know. He wasn't exactly clear with me, it made me cry harder, he finally slapped me, I yelled at him, he cried, air was cleared. Bam, we're good." He gave him a wry smile.

"Basically the word boyfriend made him feel paranoid and pressured because he had a highly romanticized idea of what it means. He loves us both. His motivation in breaking up with us is that he felt he would fail at his own expectations of what a boyfriend was and hurt us." He squeezed his hand. "Obviously, we didn't expect anything different than him being him but he expected more from him."

He shook his head slightly. "It was never about not wanting to be with us. He does. He so very badly does Gai, it hurt him to do that, which is why it hurt him when it didn't hurt you. See? Of course he'd focus on the relief. That doesn't negate the insecurity."

He held his gaze steadily. "I made him tell me what he really wanted. He wants to be himself with the option to kiss or not, hug or not, whatever he wants or not, and as a boyfriend he felt compelled. I don't see it as any different, personally, but I'm not going to call it that because the word itself drowned him. You see? So don't hold back on him, since it almost definitely won't help."