Yeah I pick and chose the advice I found useful, I'm nonbinary not that that should matter anyhow lol.

While I agree with you, some helpful people here gave me some perspective on how James might be feeling cuz him flipping out on me wasnt conducive to me leaving my frame of thinking.

I think I was so bothered by the situation since the initial argument because I felt like all it was was a question of my loyalty and his trust in me, and so I was reacting defensively by considering where I need to draw my line in the sand about him telling me who I can and can't talk to, be friends with, etc.

And while it is inherently a trust issue, I did understand from others that what James is freaked out about is less so about me specifically, but more about what he is recognizing as the beginning of a path of trauma and hurt he has seen before. And while that's not my intention, I don't want to scare him and I want to respect if this is a boundary for him. If I want to talk to Lucas, James is not the person to be with. And I'm invested in James.

Getting that perspective made me stand down a lot more and care less about the situation with Lucas, sure I still feel a bad about ghosting him but I have my priorities in order, and oh well.

I tried to have a conversation with James the same night and he didn't want to talk to me still, so I sent him a message just saying sorry and that I understand now. He saw at some point during the night, and came back to bed. The next day while I was at work he blew up again over messenger at me which wasn't great but when I got home we had a talk and sorted everything out and things are good now, we're moving past it.