“You asked me to go out with you. I know you probably changed your mind. But you should know, the answer was yes. It's always been yes when it comes to you.”

“I dialed the number slowly, wanting to get it right. Two rings, and he picked up. "Yes," I said after his hello. "Mclean?" he asked. "Is that you?""Yeah," I said, swallowing and looking out my open door, at the ocean. "The answer's yes." "The answer . . ." he said slowly. "You asked me to go out with you. I know you probably changed your mind. But you should know, the answer was yes. It's always been yes when it comes to you." He was very quiet for a moment. "Where are you?" I started crying again, my voice ragged. He told me to calm down. He told me it was going to be all right. And then, he told he'd be there soon.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?' I asked her.'You know,' she said, 'when you say stuff like that I just want to slap you.''What?''You heard me.' She picked up her beer and took a swallow, still watching me. Then she said, 'Colie, you should never be surprised when people treat you with respect. You should expect it.'I shook my head. 'You don’t know-' I began. But, as usual, she didn’t let me finish.'Yes,' she said simply. 'I do know. I’ve watched you, Colie. You walk around like a dog waiting to be kicked, and when someone does, you pout and cry like you didn’t deserve it.''No one deserves to be kicked,' I said.'I disagree,' she said flatly. 'You do if you don’t think you’re worth any better.”

“So," he said as we turned onto the main road, the muffler rattling, "I've been thinking.""Yeah?"He nodded. "You really need to go out with me." I blinked. "I'm sorry?""You know. You, me. A restaurant or movie. Together." He glanced over, shifting gears. "Maybe it's a new concept for you? If so, I'll be happy to walk you through it.""You want to take me to a movie?" I asked."Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I though saying that might scare you off.”

“This is a 911? You know you only text that when someone is dead or dying. You scared the crap out of me.”

“He thought about this for a second. "True. But if you never really make friends, you probably don't have anyone to be your 2 a.m. Which would kind of suck. I just looked at him as he stirred his soup, carrots spinning in the liquid. "Your what?" "Two a.m." He swallowed, then said, "You know. The person you can call at two a.m. and, no matter what, you can count on them. Even if they're asleep or it's cold or you need to be bailed out of jail...they'll come for you. It's, like, the highest level of friendship.”

“Fine," he repeated, and I wondered why it was I kept coming back to this, again and again, a word that you said when someone asked how you were but didn't really care to know the truth.”