From the Bookshelf of Buddy Read Zone…

“It seemed cruelly unfair to me, even then, how fast your life can change before you have an opportunity to rethink your choices. We should get second chances on the big stuff. We should come equipped with erasers attached to the tops of our heads. Like pencils. We should be able to flip over and scribble away mistakes, at least once or twice during the duration of our existence, especially in matters of life and death.”

[his eyes] ... they were older, wearier than his age let on. But I sensed in them a splash of irony, too; a proud acceptance of the fact that life can be a bitch sometimes, that some people feel things too deeply.

"You try and act so tough, you think you're so damn hopeless and godless and faithless, but you don't fool me. People without hope aren't tormented by the world they way you are. People without hope don't give a shit. But I see it in you, in the way you look at things, even in the way you look at me sometimes, like I'm the coolest fucking guy in the universe, and I know it's in there. Reverence. Belief. Something. You have a lot more faith than you own up to."

"I know it's late but," he paused, "would it be all right if I came over?"
"Right now?"
"Yeah."
"Jacob," I said, "how long have you been waiting to ask me that?"
"Who knows?" he said, more to himself than to me.
"Maybe all my life."