What does hurt is how broken, in retrospect, his relationship with James had been. How disjointed and noncommunicative and unintentionally cruel they’d been to each other—both terrified, with no idea how to love someone and no one they could go to for help with figuring out how. He can’t say he wishes that first desperate kiss at sixteen had never happened, but he hurts for his past self. For past James. For both of them. It wasn’t fair.
