"Hey, man! Tonight actually went pretty well. I think so anyway. Something felt kind of awkward, but it was probably just me."

Soda stood in the middle of his bedroom, eyes fixed on the pictures that covered his wall, as Steve entered, his evening now coming to a close. "That's great. I mean, not the awkward part, but the rest. It ain't surprisin' though. Samuel's real easy to get along with, and I can't see anybody not likin' him."

Steve stepped further into the room, Soda's stillness bothering him, even though it wasn't accompanied by silence. "Yeah. Me neither. We stumbled into some uncomfortable subjects, but that's sort of expected with death and religion."

"Yeah."

"How did it go with Penny?"

"We broke up."

"Oh, buddy. I'm sorry."

"I saw it comin', and I'm the one who told her we should end it."

"That doesn't make the heartache any less, man."

"We're still stayin' friends. We won't lose touch."

"I didn't think you would. This doesn't mean you aren't still important to each other."

"She'll always be important to me, and I'll always love her."

Steve held his hand out to Soda, feeling his best friend take it and squeeze. "Let me get ready for bed real quick, buddy, then we'll have some hot chocolate and talk a while. Does that sound okay?"

Soda closed his eyes for a moment, as he felt Steve squeeze his hand in return. "Yeah. Sounds good, Stevie."

"You're going to get through this, all right? I know it hurts really bad now, but you will. Like you always do."

"I know." Soda stared at one of the pictures on the wall, seeing both his own smile and Penny's, as the camera had snapped to capture a memory. "Cause it's not like I have any other choice."

"Maybe my discernment is just working overtime, but something didn't feel quite right to me."

Vivian got into the bed beside Samuel, who had a Bible in his lap. "Or maybe you're just concerned for Steve and want things to work out for him."

Samuel looked down at the notes he'd written in reference to Jesus' life, wishing he could fully agree with Vivian. "That could be it. Steve says he's bringing her to the cookout on Sunday, so maybe seeing her again will put my spirit more at ease."

"It seems crazy to say this, but I don't think I even feel as sad as I did the other night after she first told me about takin' the job."

Steve handed Soda a mug of hot chocolate, as he sat down beside him with his own. "I think that sounds about right, actually. Not knowing for sure what's going to happen and how can be even tougher than just directly coping with it."

Soda sipped the hot chocolate, as he contemplated the feelings he had inside, their intensity not as sharp as he would've expected. "Yeah. Maybe it's that cause I was just wonderin' so much. It probably hasn't sunk in yet either though. You know how I am with stuff sometimes. It can take a little bit for it to really hit me."

"I think you were already processing it, man. Like you said, you were grieving. You still are too, and now, it's like this different aspect because you and Penny had that conversation. The idea of breaking up isn't just looming over you anymore."

Soda put his mug down on the coffee table, each of his wandering thoughts coming together to form one conclusion. "There's so much grief, Stevie. It's in everything. People think of it only bein' about death. But it's not. It's about lots of stuff, and I can never get away from it."

"Yeah. I have to admit you're right about that, buddy. I know we've both been through a ton of grief related to death, but it's probably not a reach to say that even more of it has had to do with something else. There are plenty of different kinds of losses, that's for damn sure."

Soda scooted closer to Steve, one hand clutching the back of his best friend's t-shirt, as he put his head on his shoulder. "It feels like I just lost a piece of my heart."

Steve put his arms around Soda, holding him through what he knew to be a pain that would ebb and flow. "I know. I've got you, brother. It'll take some time, but you won't keep hurting this much."

"What am I supposed to do now? Do I date? I can't even think about that or see myself with another woman."

"Don't move so fast there, man. It's okay if you can't think about any of that. All you're supposed to do is let yourself feel and grieve. There's no hurry to get into anything else."

Soda felt himself start to cry for the first time since Penny had been the one in the apartment with him, the emotion bubbling out, as Steve's arms kept their hold. "There was so much pain in Penny's voice when we talked about Emily. I could hear it, and it just made me real sure we couldn't do this anymore."

"I hope you know how amazing it is that you two stayed together through the adoption. Even that you're on great terms now too."

"You don't think I screwed up, do you?"

"Screwed up how?"

"By tellin' her we needed to break up. Do you think I made a mistake?"

"No. I think you did what you believed is right. The talk that you and Penny had is one you needed, no matter how it was going to turn out. Besides, it's sounding pretty mutual to me, even though you were the one to bring up the whole subject. You and Penny have been through and dealt with more than a lot of people could even imagine, and with the way things are now, I can see why breaking up was the only road left to take."

"A private conversation about a sensitive subject, huh? Does it involve what happened when you were a kid?"

Steve stood in the TU parking lot with Katie, looking through a folder of returned assignments and evaluations. "Yeah. I think it's time to tell you about that. It's really important as far as us getting to know each other."

Katie flipped through her own folder, seeing Steve unlock his car, as what she thought was a distracted look covered his face. "Is something wrong?"

"Huh? Oh. No. I was just thinking I'd drive over to TSC and see Soda for a few minutes."

"Did you tell him you were coming there?"

"No. I'm kind of worried about him though."

"Why? Does he still have personal things going on?"

"Yeah. It's not the sort of stuff that gets solved very fast, but I'm hoping he's getting there."

"I'm sure he can take care of his own problems, but you're a good friend for being concerned."

"That's just it though. We don't take care of our problems alone."

"Yes, I can see that's true."

"You'll understand more about it after we talk tonight. The relationships I have with both Soda and my dad are one reason I'm wanting to share what happened when I was younger. I think it'll give you a way to see my life from the inside out."

"Don't worry, Stevie. I'm still up to bein' there for you. I'm not about to let you down."

Steve sat with Soda in the TSC's break room, the two splitting a sub sandwich. "You wouldn't be letting me down, man. I just want to make sure it's not going to be too heavy for you since I really don't know how I'll be after this conversation."

Soda picked the tomato off his section of the sandwich, eating it apart from the pickles, meat, and cheese. "I'm feelin' better than before, but even if I do start to feel bad again, helpin' you will be the best thing for me then too. Ain't that how it usually works?"

"Yeah. Of course it is. But so is my being concerned. I can't watch you with a broken heart and not wonder if adding more on top of it will overwhelm you."

"I know. But I'll be all right. I'm tryin' to look on the bright side and remember Penny's still part of my life, and at the same time, it's really important to me that I'm there to help you through whatever tonight brings too."

"So what do you need to tell me? I have to admit I've been rather curious."

Steve settled on the couch beside Katie, eyes glancing down the hall to see the closed bedroom door that he knew his best friend was right behind. "Yeah. I figured you must be. I honestly haven't had a lot of practice with this. Not recently anyway. But, as someone I'm dating, I think you deserve to know that I was abused when I was a kid."

Katie's eyes didn't leave Steve's face, as she spoke the first questions that came to her mind. "Who abused you? Was it one of your parents?"

"No. My parents never would've done anything like this. It was a girlfriend of my dad's. Her name was Clara."

"So what happened then? What did she do?"

"After all these years, I still have a hard time saying it, but she sexually abused me. I was only eleven at the time, and she used to come into my bed late at night. It happened a lot, and I didn't tell anyone. Not even my dad."

"Is this why you've been wanting to delay our having sex? Because you were abused?"

"That's part of it, yeah, but it's sort of more complicated than that. I'm not only telling you what happened because of the abuse itself. I'm wanting you to know because of how it affected me later. When I was a kid, I didn't really get to deal with how I felt or any of that stuff. My dad found out because he caught Clara in my room. He made her leave, but afterward, things just didn't go the healthiest way. I know I told you he and I weren't always close, and that's basically why. He didn't want to talk about what happened, so we didn't, and when I was older, the memories started getting to me pretty badly. I had flashbacks, and they affected everything in my life. Not even Soda knew I'd been abused until what I was remembering started causing problems."

"How old were you when that happened?"

"I was seventeen. Between finally telling Soda about the abuse and my dad and I being able to get on the same page, I got a lot out that I never imagined saying to anyone. I started seeing a counselor too, and she was part of my life for five years. I also had a girlfriend named Evie during all of this, and we ended up having a very hard time because of how I reacted when we were about to have sex."

"How did you react? Do you think it'd still be difficult for you if we were to be intimate?"

"It could be. I'm really not sure. But I don't think it'd be that bad. I had a flashback and ran out of the room. I was dealing with all these memories of being touched by Clara, so anyone touching me sexually was a huge trigger. Evie took it pretty personally. Not that I blame her for how she felt. She and I tried more than once, but we never could get past what happened."

"So how are you now then? Do you have flashbacks anymore?"

"Not usually. Definitely not often, like back then. I remember feeling like they'd never stop."

"Did religion help you with this too?"

"Yeah. I wasn't really open to it at first, but I got there. Samuel had plenty to do with me getting to a place where I could talk to God and trust him."

"You said you were eleven when you were abused, right?"

"Yeah. I was old enough to understand that what Clara was doing was wrong, but also young enough to feel scared and confused."

"How could your dad not know something so terrible was happening to you?"

"There was no way for him to know. She hid it well, and so did I. I felt guilty, and that's a feeling I carried with me for a long time. I was afraid for anyone to ever know."

"But why? You didn't do anything wrong. She was the abuser, not you."

"That's just the way this kind of stuff goes. Not long after she left, we found out Clara had killed herself, and I felt guilty about that too."

"I see."

"Is there something you're thinking? Whatever it is, you can tell me."

Katie felt Steve take her hand, as she considered how to respond, the situation she'd just learned about provoking an array of discomfort that she couldn't fathom. "I'm just not sure what I need to say. I like you a lot, Steve, and it doesn't feel good to think of you being traumatized. I don't know what I'm supposed to do either because, obviously, this still matters to you, or you wouldn't have told me."

"You don't have to say or do anything, Katie. Except take me as I am. Yeah, I've had problems because of the abuse. Sometimes, I even still do. But it's also helped shape my life in a lot of ways. Knowing now how true that is, I can't even look back and wish it didn't happen to me. It was the most horrible experience, but yet, without it, I probably wouldn't be the person I am today."