The amusement strikes first, because all he can say for a moment is, "Did you just Regina George me?" he snorts softly, shaking his head.

But everything after that is just a tangled, knotted mess of confusion and uncertainty, desire and desperation, of panic and loss and regret. It's so much of everything, it just becomes a blur of nothing.

"I don't know... which is kind of a stupid fucking answer, but I... I don't know, Mark. There's just..." The discomfort is a sharp spike in the middle of the rest. He's not used to being this honest, ever. But it's that even sharper edge of desperation that seems to push him forward. "I think there's just... a certain kind of...lost? and lonely that fits together in a certain way. I guess I thought..."

He scoffs a little and shakes his head, a swirl of bitterness. "Well, I guess it doesn't really matter, does it?"