"Well, good, because I would still like to look Caleb in the face." Neil keeps blushing, and for a moment everything feels a little easier. Not normal, because nothing had ever been--not for a long time, anyway--but simpler than the last day or so had been.

Neil gets quiet, then confessional, and Rosie understands the gravity of what he says. "I don't think it's like that at all," she says, equally careful and hushed. "Or it shouldn't be. It's different, even being friends with him is different when you know what he can do, but that doesn't mean he'll get tired of you. He just...understands more than someone else might. For good and bad."