“Even though Graham and I went back to arguing and stealing socks and hiding each other's toothbrushes in the litter box, I didn't forget that Graham didn't think I needed a best friend, because either it meant he thought I was cool enough to handle everything alone or—and this was what I hoped—it meant that he was my best friend, quietly, forever, no matter what.I mean, after all, whose skates had I been wearing?”

“And I know, by Noah's face, that even though he knew it, he didn't believe it, even though we all knew it, we were all holding on, somehow, hoping they'd keep trying, that they could just keep on living and fighting. We trusted them to do that.”

“So once the zookeeper realized it was the monkeys who stole the bananas, he knew there was only one way he'd be able to get them back.""How?" I whispered. My throat was so sore."Don't talk. He had to beat them in shuffleboard, of course.""What?""I said don't talk. Monkeys love shuffleboard."He used a page from a homework assignment he'd failed and a stack of quarters to make a shuffleboard court. I watched the monkeys and the zookeepers have their showdown while I sipped the last of my applejuice."Need more?" Graham asked me without looking up, when my straw skidded against the dry bottom of the box."Uh uh.""You're supposed to drink juice.""I just drank some.""More, though."I shook my head."Drink more juice or the monkeys are going to kill you. The only thing they love more than shuffleboard is beating up dehydrated sick boys.”

“I’m bored of this. I want to hear about you. Favorite color. Go.”I laugh. “Green.”“I’m green!”“Fuck yeah you are.”“Why are you laughing? Isn’t this what friends do?”“Interrogate each other?”“What? Uh, sure. I don’t know what that means. But yes.”

“I hold my finger up to his lips. He flicks his eyes down to look at it."You're absolved," I tell him.He brings his eyes back up to mine. There's no fucking way he knows what that word means. That's a word I dream someone will say to me.So I put it in his language. "You're free.”

“How’s everything going, Jonah?” This question is enough to piss me off. I hate counselors ... I have Naomi. I don’t need this crap.”

“He says, "But it is really whatever, you know? You've saved me way more times. And we call ourselves friends."It doesn't matter what we call ourselves, really. "You already saved me," I say."That was nothing.""I'm not talking about the cave."He wrinkles his nose."That first day," I say, "When you got up on the rocks to flirt with a human boy."He smiles big, with all his ground-down teeth shining.”