"What? No, I'm not—" Jesse starts, and then cuts himself off. He didn't even think. He'd just stopped showing up out of the blue without even saying anything to Clementine. Adults are usually cool when something like that happens, or they'll call or whatever. Jesse's not really around a lot of kids, so sometimes he forgets that you've got to go about things different. And it probably goes double when the kid has been through everything Clementine has.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he says, "and I'm not mad at you."