The response surprises him and he's not entirely sure why. He glances over at her, taken aback, even though she's right, isn't she? He felt like - everything he just put her through, and the way he keeps reacting to her gestures of affection, it's all so unfair, he had to owe her, but - but he doesn't.

The fact that she's answered rightly, dismissing the offer of explanation, is almost too perfect. He doesn't even know what his mother would have said. He doesn't know anything about her, not really, not how she would have handled his insecurities, his fears, anything. It's a gaping black hole in his life.

"It..." he starts to say and is surprised to feel his throat thickening, nooo let's not do that. He swallows with some difficulty and shakes his head. "It's okay. Thank you for... for helping me."

He can't keep it down. Comes fucking crawling back up like an animal dying to get out. He shudders involuntarily, feeling himself weaken, he doesn't want to do this, not in front of a stranger, not when everything's already so fucking weird, but it's too late, when he inhales it's sharp and audible, and impossible to mistake for anything but a prelude to a sob. She's too far away from him to grasp for a handhold, so all he can do, pathetically, is pitch over, half fetal, trembling, reaching, his hand stuck into the grass.