Fatigue crawls in to fill the space left behind by released sorrow and tension, and as John starts to answer, Martin has no recourse but to listen, no energy to argue or protest or even react beyond slight changes in his breathing. Things were difficult, he wants to say, but finds no conviction for it. Deeper, thornier rejoinders occur to him, a cascade of evidence in favor of his own badness, unfair assessments and unkind counterpoints that feel hollow and unconvincing even to him. Because he knows, part of him knows, that John is right. That it wasn't his fault; that he was only a child, and he ought not hold himself to standards he doesn't enforce for anyone else. That none of it was fair, and that he did the best he could in a terrible situation.

Knowing it is one thing, accepting it another, much more distant.

But still he lacks the energy to argue, and the comfort of John's arms around him, the absolution he offers — forgiveness that isn't his to extend, as if that would ever stop him — Christ, Martin wants to keep all that, he wants to accept it, to believe he might deserve it. He wants that so badly he can barely breathe, every inhale slow and labored, every exhale a tired, shaky sigh. "Yeah," he mumbles finally. "S'pose."