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I nodded into his shirt

"Gives you an idea how I feel about you," he said

My old man He always knew just what to say

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A couple days later, I got up around noon and drove over to Isaac’s house He answered the door himself "My o do souy video ga on the couch?"

"Yeah, that’s just the kind of so I had into the screen together, navigating this invisible labyrinthine cave without a single luae us in humorous conversation:

Me: "Touch the cave wall"

Computer: "You touch the cave wall It is moist"

Isaac: "Lick the cave wall"

Computer: "I do not understand Repeat?"

Me: "Hump the moist cave wall"

Computer: "You attempt to jump You hit your head"

Isaac: "Not jump HUMP"

Computer: "I don’t understand"

Isaac: "Dude, I’ve been alone in the dark in this cave for weeks and I need some relief HUMP THE CAVE WALL"

Coainst the cave wall"

Computer: "I do not--"

Isaac: "Make sweet love to the cave"

Computer: "I do not--"

Me: "FINE Follow left branch"

Coe narrows"

Me: "Crawl"

Coe narrows"

Me: "Snake crawl"

Computer: "You snake crawl for thirty yards A trickle of water runs down your body You reach a eway"

Me: "Can I hump the cave now?"

Co"

Isaac: "I dislike living in a world without Augustus Waters"

Computer: "I don’t understand--"

Isaac: "Me neither Pause"

He dropped the remote onto the couch between us and asked, "Do you know if it hurt or whatever?"

"He was really fighting for breath, I guess," I said "He eventually went unconscious, but it sounds like, yeah, it wasn’t great or anything Dying sucks"

"Yeah," Isaac said And then after a long time, "It just seems so iry," he said

"Yeah," I said We just sat there quiet for a long ti about way back in the very beginning in the Literal Heart of Jesus when Gus told us that he feared oblivion, and I told hi universal and inevitable, and how really, the proble itself or oblivion itself but the depraved s, the absolutely inhu me that the universe wants to be noticed But ant is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us--not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us, as individuals

"Gus really loved you, you know," he said

"I know"

"He wouldn’t shut up about it"

"I know," I said

"It was annoying"

"I didn’t find it that annoying," I said

"Did he ever give you that thing he riting?"

"What thing?"

"That sequel or whatever to that book you liked"

I turned to Isaac "What?"

"He said he orking on soood of a writer"

"When did he say this?"

"I don’t know Like, after he got back from Amsterdam at some point"

"At which point?" I pressed Had he not had a chance to finish it? Had he finished it and left it on his cohed "Um, I don’t know We talked about it over here once He was over here, like--uh, we played with randmother I can check on the machine if you--"

"Yeah, yeah, where is it?"

He’d ood h ti, at least There was still so around out there I needed it

"I’o to his house," I told Isaac

I hurried out to the er seat I started the car A hip-hop beat blared froe the radio station, so In Swedish