[ He nods very thoughtfully. This is an avenue where he feels right at home.

He doesn't want to be here or for any of them to be here, for every reason under the sun. But he'd be lying if he said it wasn't pleasantly surprising how weird the conversations have been. In a good way. Wow, is Steven glad he's not saying this out loud. ]

I've got a few friends with histories like that. I don't know how much it helps to hear about people who aren't here, but if it does help, they all wound up moving on to better things after their first thing didn't work out. They're really happy now.