Back on the road, Ari and Dante talk about how Dante’s fascination with words. Dante says he fell in love with dictionaries as a child, and that the best present he ever got was an edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Their discussion eventually takes a serious turn when Ari tells Dante that he is not sure what he is or who he will become. Ari tells Dante that he will be a successful artist one day, to which Dante replies, “That’s what I really want” (86). When Ari suggests that there is nothing special about himself, Dante disagrees.

At another rest stop, Dante gets excited to be among nature. They are quiet for a while, until Dante asks Ari what he is thinking about. Ari tells him he is thinking that people are very complicated. The conversation turns to the accident last year, wherein Ari saved Dante from getting run over. Ari does not like it when Dante tells him that he saved his life and asks Dante if that is why he loves him. Dante assures Ari he loved him from the first moment they met.