I'll start with the positives first. I truly adore the way grief and dealing with it is depicted here. Grief never fully disappears and as Jayden said, the pain still comes up when he's confronted with it, but as more good things and people come into his life, it doesn't last as long. This is basically how time and with that time, expanding on your experiences and social net makes more space for grief to not take it all up all the time, and trigger the painful memories as easily. It's like when grief is contained in a very small box, and that box feels very tight so said grief takes up everything and touches all the painful spots, but as that box grows, the grief stays the same, it just doesn't take up everything now.
I also adore Diego, of course, he's just a sweet, kind person. I like how he accepted Jayden's past and could read him - he understood Jayden fell for him as a person in the process of dealing with recognizing Matthew in him, and that was enough for him to not dismiss or get angry. He's just so gentle!
Now the negatives - the pacing of the story is just off and as someone else said here, it was maybe planned longer, and sould've been better as a longer story, with more of a buildup and more time for Jayden and Diego to fall for each other, but also for Jayden to work through his grief and projection of Matthew onto Diego. What I particularly don't like is the use of the unhinged third wheel character... I feel like with Jayden's other people who care about him, with Diego and his therapist as well as his own insight and reflection, he could've come to conclusions and worked through his new found relationship instead of having a rapist piece of shit cling onto him, disrupt the flow of the story, and back him into a corner just for him to realize how he feels about both Diego and Matthew. It's just so overused as a plot/character device and muddled the otherwise solid story concept.
I'll start with the positives first. I truly adore the way grief and dealing with it is depicted here. Grief never fully disappears and as Jayden said, the pain still comes up when he's confronted with it, but as more good things and people come into his life, it doesn't last as long. This is basically how time and with that time, expanding on your experiences and social net makes more space for grief to not take it all up all the time, and trigger the painful memories as easily. It's like when grief is contained in a very small box, and that box feels very tight so said grief takes up everything and touches all the painful spots, but as that box grows, the grief stays the same, it just doesn't take up everything now.
I also adore Diego, of course, he's just a sweet, kind person. I like how he accepted Jayden's past and could read him - he understood Jayden fell for him as a person in the process of dealing with recognizing Matthew in him, and that was enough for him to not dismiss or get angry. He's just so gentle!
Now the negatives - the pacing of the story is just off and as someone else said here, it was maybe planned longer, and sould've been better as a longer story, with more of a buildup and more time for Jayden and Diego to fall for each other, but also for Jayden to work through his grief and projection of Matthew onto Diego. What I particularly don't like is the use of the unhinged third wheel character... I feel like with Jayden's other people who care about him, with Diego and his therapist as well as his own insight and reflection, he could've come to conclusions and worked through his new found relationship instead of having a rapist piece of shit cling onto him, disrupt the flow of the story, and back him into a corner just for him to realize how he feels about both Diego and Matthew. It's just so overused as a plot/character device and muddled the otherwise solid story concept.