“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you,” he said, and was so distraught he excused himself and went to our room. There were times, as now, when Oren acted as if he’d failed me in some far more essential manner than the circumstance, when half the time I felt like I’d failed him, and this mystery made the gulf between us seem even more unbridgeable than the fact that we no longer spent our days at school together.
