SHE BREAKS INTO TEARS the instant she hears his voice, crying so intensely and for so long that he is stunned speechless, can hardly believe that any human being, much less the prettiest girl at North Pines—though only he and Ken Goodman have apprehended it, a beauty so quiet and obvious one might see through it like water—could be moved so much by him, a skinny boy with stringy hair whom a bully once said looked like a white rat. He isn’t sure how it makes him feel, her crying and moaning because of him, other than needed, vital, imperative, as though he is oxygen itself and so must be protected, provided for, kept close. He lets her cry for a long time even though his parents think he is using Circus-Circus’s restroom. In fact he has ducked into a phone booth in the lobby, a booth with a
