His fingers start to fidget in his lap at all this, and he's torn between curling them into his hair and reaching for the puzzle to calm himself. In the end, he decides on the former.

Micah mostly has it right, if not for the exactly correct reasons. Some of this is just Nathan's natural awkwardness. He does not expect to get along with everyone by default, and honestly tends to attribute that to deficiencies in himself. He's the strange one, he's the one that does not know what he's doing in social contexts. But with Micah, everything gets magnified due to what he knows of that other life.

He does deserve an explanation, though.

"I did not . . . want to unload everything on you so early." This is at least partially true. Getting hit in the face with Echo after Echo after Echo, especially if they are all unpleasant, is probably not a nice experience. And he'd . . . wanted the chance for them to be able to get along first. "I cannot say for yours and his, but yours and mine . . . they didn't get along. It's more a worry than an expectation. We are different people; I realize the worry likely is not a particularly rational one."

Nathan is not good at a lot of things, but worrying irrationally is one of them. His fingers keep winding into his hair.