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Co realizes now that this was complacency One of the reasons he liked the sound of Harry’s voice was because it meant he didn’t have to use his own But eventually this strategy backfired Eventually Harry realized as happening, and didn’t feel right about it He wanted Craig to fight a littlefor the for so that feelsto go without food, without a bathroo to keep his lips on Harry’s for sevento help Harry do all of these things as well

It’s one of the secrets of strength: We’re so much more likely to find it in the service of others than we are to find it in service to ourselves We have no idea why this is It’s not just the uy who shields his girlfriend when the gunman starts to fire Those are extremes, brave extremes, which life rarely calls on us to offer No, it is the less extreth that is not so much situational as it is constitutional--that ill find in order to give How often did we see this, as ere dying? How s over our care? How many reticent parents shed that reticence to be there with us? Not all Certainly, not everyone showed strength So people in our lives showed that their strength was actually made of straw But so many held us up in ways they would not have held theh, even as their worlds cru, even after ere gone Or especially because ere gone They kept fighting for us

We are gone, and one, too, as the ones who knew us stop re us so often, or coth--it carries through It is there for the taking You just have to reach for it and find it, as Craig is doing now He would never grasp at it for himself, not in this way But for Harry, he will

Cooper, rasp He refuses to hold He refuses to feel

We watch hi without realizing he is driving He knows there is a destination out there for hi his way toward it In thethe empty census of people who love hi anyone, because he doesn’t think anyone cares about hih the motions They will have their tears once he’s left But underneath that performance of sadness, he feels their relief They don’t want him to come back, so he won’t

Love, he thinks, is a lie that people tell each other in order to make the world bearable He is not up for the lie any to lie to him like that, anyway He’s not even worth a lie

We want him to take a census of the future We want him to consider that love does make the world bearable, but that does not make it a lie We want him to see the time when he will feel it, truly feel it, for the first ti

In his mind, the future is a theory that has already been proven false

What a powerful word, future Of all the abstractions we can articulate to ourselves, of all the concepts we have that other animals do not, how extraordinary the ability to consider a tiic not to consider it It galls us, ith such a liless, when it has an endless capacity for s that can be found within it

Sing us that old refrain

Where do you want to go?

I don’t knohere do you want to go?

What do you want to do?

I don’t knohat do you want to do?

The feed of the two boys kissing stays on in the background as Neil and Peter play video gaht with Neil--his heart doesn’t seeht over a few days ago, desperate to make it to level thirty-two by the end of the week Peter is afraid it’s still about the stupid text he got fro else that’s the, because he knows Neil will bring it up when he’s ready to bring it up Maybe it isn’t anything at all

For his part, Neil doesn’t understand why he isn’t talking to Peter, why he’s killing Russian assassins instead of telling Peter that his world has shifted He’s waiting for Peter to ask hi’s happened, and why should he always have to be the one to point it out?

Peter pauses the gary?" he asks

"Not really" is Neil’s reply

"Thirsty?"

"No"

"Do you want to do so else?"

"Are you in the throes of constipation?"

Neil is not in the a"

"Which one aht now Balkan Bloodbath 12"

"Oh No I’ on?

But instead he unpauses the game

"If you’re fine," he says, "I’m fine"