Hushed Willows what even is a good thread title

Even as Lily offered some reassurance and a listening ear with a small dose of humour, Ephraim shuffled nervously. Where to start? He was afraid she would secretly think everything he told her was stupid. The stupid fears of a stupid boy with all his insecurities. That's all he was, anyway. A stupid boy. He'd been a stupid boy to run away from thunder and get lost and be taken in by a pack that was somehow enemies with his family, and he was a stupid boy for going to war with that pack, only to find out the enemy was the very family he had lost. He was a stupid boy for missing the thought of a family he might have had almost as badly as he missed the one that had adopted him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. So he sat there for a while, gnawing on his lip and trying to think of the best place to start. The beginning, he supposed. Nothing else made sense without the beginning. So, uh, when I was little I got lost... He decided to leave out the storm part. It would only make her think he was a wuss. And Ephraim might have been that, but he was eager to preserve what little pride he had left. He'd left most of it behind on the beach in Drageda, but there was still a little of it there, and he was loathe to let it go by admitting he was afraid of flashing lights in the sky. And I was taken in by another family, and they took care of me and kept me safe. Then they got into this huge fight with another family, he paused, breathing out a long sigh.

I was in the battle with them, because I owed them my life, but then everything got... weird. Everyone's faces kind of melted off and I got really freaked out and attacked someone in my family. By accident, but... Blackbear hadn't lasted long in Drageda after that, and Ephraim couldn't help thinking that was his fault, too. He blamed himself for so much more than he deserved to take credit for. It was easy to keep spiraling that way, easier than talking himself out of it. Anyway, then I found out the family we were fighting is my real family, which is just so fucked up, and now I'm pretty sure they hate me because I hate them for attacking the family that took me in and I can't sleep properly and when I do sleep, I dream about the fight. Sometimes I think I dream about it when I'm awake too. God, that sounded so stupid. What was he, a four month old pretending to play monsters?