After tiny has tried ballerina pose, swing-batter-batter pose, pump-up-the-jam pose, and top-of-the-mountain-sound-of-music pose in the reflection of the bean, he walks us to a bench overlooking lake shore drive.

I feel such a tenderness for these vulnerable nighttime conversations, the way words take a different shape in the air when there's no light in the room.

It is an awful thing to be betrayed by your body. And it’s lonely, because you feel you can’t talk about it.

detachment, n. Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it.

You don't know, but I'm noticing.

The boy I loved didn't know I existed. Then again, he was obsessed with Camus, so he didn't know if any of us existed.

I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces—they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it will mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe in that.