In the chap­ter titled “Encounter #2 with the Rain­bow-Haired Girl,” we delve into Miles Fall, a boy bur­dened by the unique abil­i­ty to see the souls of dogs and com­mu­ni­cate with them, par­tic­u­lar­ly San­dro, a black Lab. Hid­ing in the vine­yards instead of attend­ing school, Miles grap­ples with com­plex feel­ings of alien­ation and iden­ti­ty as he evades the judg­ment and expec­ta­tions from peers and fam­i­ly, notably due to his recent strug­gles with men­tal health that have left him feel­ing dis­con­nect­ed from his activ­i­ties and social life.

Miles feels both present and absent in his inter­ac­tions, as he goes through the motions of being a per­fect stu­dent, as dubbed by his moth­er and school, while inter­nal­ly, he feels like a cos­mic mistake—a sen­ti­ment that man­i­fests in a poignant lack of emo­tion, rarely cry­ing yet occa­sion­al­ly wak­ing to damp pil­lows. His life spi­rals fur­ther when he quits var­i­ous clubs and sports, over­whelmed by a “Gloom Room,” a place of despair.

The chap­ter por­trays a piv­otal moment when Miles encoun­ters San­dro, who express­es his own feel­ings of lone­li­ness, exac­er­bat­ed by the loss of his com­pan­ion, Beau­ty. Their bond deep­ens as they con­fide in one anoth­er, dis­cov­er­ing mutu­al under­stand­ing in their shared feel­ings of anx­i­ety and depres­sion.

As the nar­ra­tive unfolds, Miles rem­i­nisces about a trans­for­ma­tive kiss with a cook named Nico, an expe­ri­ence that unleash­es a tor­rent of emo­tions he had long sup­pressed. This encounter alters Miles’s per­cep­tion of love and accep­tance, pro­pelling him into a sea­son of explo­ration regard­ing his sex­u­al­i­ty.

Fac­ing a hot, oppres­sive day, Miles’s jour­ney takes an unex­pect­ed turn when he dis­cov­ers a vin­tage orange pick­up truck occu­pied by a girl dis­play­ing an intrigu­ing mix of punk and hip­pie aes­thet­ics. This girl—sleeping, adorned with tat­toos and sur­round­ed by books—captures Miles’s atten­tion deeply. Their inter­ac­tion ignites a sense of long­ing in him, high­light­ing his unfa­mil­iar but potent attrac­tion toward her. She leaves him with a thought-pro­vok­ing quote from Joseph Camp­bell, stir­ring a new­found inspi­ra­tion as she dri­ves away, prompt­ing Miles to pon­der his own path amidst the con­fu­sion and emo­tions he’s expe­ri­enc­ing.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Miles feel­ing an intense con­nec­tion to the girl, reveal­ing a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty he rarely exhibits, as he begins to artic­u­late his mixed feel­ings about love and desire, both for boys and now, unex­pect­ed­ly, for this girl. His trust in San­dro remains stead­fast, show­cas­ing the deep com­pan­ion­ship between human and dog in the face of human com­plex­i­ties.