She was still backing away from him, backing away like she was liable to burn him, and that cut deeper than anything. She thought she'd hurt him. He'd done that to her, with his stupid, bull-headed bloody— trying to bury the problem, like he always did.
The look on her face now... Fuck. Oh, fuck. He hadn't wanted to be a burden on anyone. Instead, inadvertently, he'd made her feel like she was the burden on him.
"You're not. You've not been. You ain't done a thing." The words that had come so haltingly before now spilled from him, hurried and anxious. "I'm here cos I want to be here. An' I din' tell you cos— cos you'd have told me to go, and I don't want that, I don't wanna have to. I thought— it's only in my head, I thought I could—" He let his hands drop. It was only half a room's distance between them, but it felt like a yawning gulf. "That ain't your fault. It's none of it your fault, it's mine, I fucked up."