“He never gave up on me, I only stopped being matriculated.”

“He never gave up. And he does that for us”

“He got to know me, not with the minuteness with which I knew him, but with his spontaneous conclusions. He talked about everyone and defined them, but I had the privilege of being the only one in whom he discovered new facets, the only one to whom he addressed questions from the soul, the only one he examined and in whom he found what they never gave him, but he was frightened by the discovery. The two of us were filled with fear that night, the only night, when we again closed what we’d opened, as if we’d never seen it.”

“That spring he found the old bear, dead, in one of the caves. He slept beside the body. He dreamed the bear was his father. That was when he gave up being human. He gave her up as well.”

“Hey, Ethan.""Yeah?""Remember the Twinkie on the bus? The one I gave you in second grade, the day we met?""The one you found on the floor and gave me without telling me? Nice."He grinned and shot the ball. "It never really fell on the floor. I made that part up.”

“I still loved him. I never stopped loving him, and never stopped hoping that he would fall back in love with me as well.”