“You taught me how to survive that day,” he said. “You taught me how to be strong and how to get to the next minute. And the next and the next. I could never forget, and when you came back in high school, and I had changed into this, because I’d seen so much shit,” he went on, “and my desires had morphed into something ugly and twisted, but I’d fucking survived nonetheless and didn’t swallow the bad for anyone anymore, because you had taught me how to get rid of the shit. I finally craved one more thing I realized had been missing when I laid eyes on you again.”
