I—

[That was a lot! He gets stuck, maybe predictably, on her saying she'd have asked him out if she didn't have someone else . . . his heart flops back and forth a few times, trying to decide how to feel about that. Flattered? Disappointed? Offended? Excited? In the end, he can't hold onto any one feeling about it except one:]

. . . Thanks. For all that, but I guess hearing you'd even consider asking me out is kinda . . . it's not like I'm not still a guy with a fragile ego who likes girls, so hearing that from someone I like and respect means a lot. Whoever you're confessing to, they're lucky as hell. I hope you know that. And that they do too, obviously.

But I'm definitely messed up. On top of just being normal messed up, I'm a little messed up about relationships specifically. . . . There's something back home I never really got to unpack.

["Got to." No, he's had time by now. It's just that he hasn't done it. He's gone out of his way to keep Anastasia in a big old suitcase in the middle of the floor in his mental room.]