The man turns his head toward her for a moment. “I love you,” she says. “Ditto,” he says loudly, above the clatter of the airboats. “Double-ditto.” She begins to giggle. Then she sobs. She has not cried for many months. Everyone is astounded. The man drives a few more miles and then pulls into a gas station. The girl feels desperate about this man. She would do the unspeakable for him, the unforgivable, anything. She is lost but not in him. She wants herself lost and never found, in him.
