"Yeah, I mean, Michael set it up for me. I had a bit of a ... a time. You know me, I fucked a lot up and now I'm trying to unfuck what I fucked. Not always possible." Turns out, you could fix a lot but you can't fix getting HIV. He didn't think he could ever tell Holden that one, it was mortifying. He had seen friends turn on him over it, he didn't want to see Holden do the same. It didn't feel right, to make him feel that way. Holden didn't deserve his white rep stained by him. "I got like a fancy diagnosis and everything from this psychiatrist? I think that's the one. Too many types of head docs. And then I got told I should see a psychotherapist so I did."

He assumed Holden knew this whole journey from others but he just wanted to explain it all. "It's only been like... two months."

He shrugged his shoulders awkwardly and then gave Holden a smile. "By the way, I'm telling him I stayed for an hour - you're getting paid. In fact, we overran and you charge double for that." Because Michael was going to PAY.