I sipped my grande frappa-mocha-something-or-other latte, while Toliver sat with woolen mittens surrounding an icy bottle of Jones bananaberry.

“Will?” he asked in that quiet voice of his, the one that usually made people turn the other direction.

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever had a feeling like no one in the world knows who you are, and yet you’re the most special person on Earth?”

This was the type of question that fell in the “cringe” category. He could ask you something that somehow, you just couldn’t answer, and he wouldn’t mind.

“I know I’ve felt the first part.”

“Most people do, many times. But it’s really the second part that makes it, because it doesn’t matter what people think of you, and so you can be whatever you want.”

Sometimes he seemed insane, and sometimes he could be the wisest person on the planet.

“I suppose.” It seemed that his description matched who he was. Many people thought of Toliver as odd. But really, he was the most human of anybody I knew.