TODD!" I yell again and I reach him and his Noise opens even farther and wraps around me like a blanket and I'm grabbing him to me, grabbing him to me like I'll never let him go and he calls out in pain but his other arm is grabbing me back - "I thought you were dead," he's saying, his breath on my neck. "I thought you were dead." "Todd," I say and I'm crying and the only thing I can say is his name. "Todd.

Here is the boy, drowning.

I was just trying to stay alive, looking for ways to find you, hoping you hadn't left me behind." "Never," I say. "Not never." He looks back up at me. "I'd never leave you neither." "You promise?" "Cross my heart, hope to die," he says, grinning shyly. "I promise, too," I say and I smile at him. "I ain't never leaving you, Todd Hewitt, not never again.

What a sad thing men are. Can’t do nothing good without being so weak we have to mess it up. Can’t build something up without tearing it down.

That's the thing I'm learning about being thrown out on yer own. Nobody does nothing for you. If you don't change it, it don't get changed.

Flakes of white fall thru the trees and onto the road, catching on our clothes and hair. It's a silent fall and it's weird how it makes everything else seem quiet, too, like it's trying to tell you a secret, a terrible, terrible secret.

I promised to keep on going but maybe keep on going means coming back first.