"What?" I say, going back over the last couple of minutes to see where she would've gotten that idea from. Okay, so maybe I could've put things a little differently, but I really wasn't going that way, scout's honor. When I was younger, it would've been my first idea. Keep in mind, though, that when I was younger, I was also an idiot. Breaking up to protect someone sounds good in theory, but in practice? Not so much. If anything, you end up worrying more, and then you have the disadvantage of not having a good reason to check up on them. And here in the Land of No Cellphones, that's sort of a necessary thing to have. "What good would it do? It's not like it would trick him."