"Yes," I said, the answer out before I had a chance to consider what I was saying and who I was saying it to. I knew Beverly was Eddie's best friend. All I could do was hope she wouldn't tell him. "I mean, I think I do. There's so much I don't know anymore."

No one here cared if I could kill a Many-Eyed or that I used to swim out into the ocean, silent as night, and crawl up the side of the pirate ship to catch them by surprise. No one here wanted me to snare rabbits or help them skin a deer. All the things I knew were less important and all the things I didn't know seemed to have so much more meaning. Crushes and the like had never mattered on the Island, because we were so young and all of us boys and it wasn't until Sal's arrival and my own growing up that I'd even realized such feelings could exist.

And now I felt hopeless. Like a fool. Eddie was my friend, but I knew, even if I couldn't admit it, that I liked him in the same way I'd liked Sal.