Suji Kim
Hard chapter but lays bare the massive insecurities both Maxi and Riftan suffer. While Maxi in particular has made great strides in improving her feelings of self worth she's still a ways off from anything remotely within the realm of true recovery and unfortunately hinders her ability to honest with Riftan and that inadvertently hinders his own ability to move past his own insecurities. That's not to say he doesn't have any responsibility in getting past his own issues but knowing Maxi's actual bg could help a lot in that regard. Or lead to a big az war between him and Duke resulting in A LOT of geopolitical drama...
Riftan really wants to pamper Maxi. what he said really hit Maxi's insecurities. I think Maxi should just tell Riftan about her past and Riftan should tell Maxi about the campaign. they should both just talk about their issues and really connect with each other. maybe that is coming, I hope so anyway.