"Me too. More practice pretending than actually being those things, I mean. My whole life, I've known I wasn't normal. Maybe I'm a different kind of abnormal than you are. See, you seem pretty normal to me. But I know that that's just appearances, and that in reality, you're probably just as abnormal as I am, but in different ways. That's why I like you. I mean, that's not the only reason I like you. There're a lot of reasons to like you."

As evidenced by his continued clinging, apparently. Ned doesn't seem to mind the continued closeness, especially not with the way Ned's resting his cheek on top of his head like that. He doesn't know exactly what Ned has to hide, other than the things that Ned had already divulged to him on Halloween, but whatever they are, he supposes they're probably different than his own. No two people are exactly the same, after all, even when it comes to deep, dark secrets.

"I fake it pretty well, too. I think. Most people think I'm pretty cheerful, or if not cheerful, just kind of weird and offbeat. And I am all of those things, I guess, but obviously I'm a whole lot of other things, too. I don't really talk about this with anyone else. I talked about it with Peggy a little, but I'm not sure if she understood it all. It's hard to try to explain your childhood in a way that won't make people pity you. Pity's such a waste of time. I tried to explain to her how I didn't feel real, how I didn't feel like I fit, but I think all she got out of it was quintessential orphaned kid sob story."