In the chap­ter “Miles,” Miles and Felix embark on a jour­ney north­ward as they dis­cuss Felix’s recent trip to Whis­per­ing Riv­er, Cal­i­for­nia, where Cas­sidy resides. Felix enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly describes the town’s quirky New Age vibe, high­light­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s lack of cloth­ing and the unique expe­ri­ence of soak­ing in the hot springs. As they con­verse, the atmos­phere in the truck shifts when Miles checks the gas gauge, reveal­ing they’re run­ning low on fuel. Felix, half-jok­ing­ly, starts to pan­ic, draw­ing a par­al­lel to hor­ror movie tropes.

Despite the imag­ined hor­ror sce­nar­ios play­ing out in their minds, Miles reas­sures Felix they are still good for the next town, propos­ing they find a ranch or farm for fuel. The con­ver­sa­tion turns deep­er; Miles reflects on quit­ting var­i­ous activ­i­ties and school, feel­ing a dis­con­nect fol­low­ing a trau­mat­ic event involv­ing his broth­er. Felix shares insights about his friend Eddie’s bat­tle with depres­sion, which prompts a philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sion about hap­pi­ness.

The night deep­ens, and Miles opens up about his feel­ings of not fit­ting in, allud­ing to his father’s mys­te­ri­ous dis­ap­pear­ance years ago and his moth­er’s per­sis­tent hope. Felix’s cheer­ful demeanor adds a lay­er of com­plex­i­ty, and Miles is struck by emo­tion­al attrac­tion towards him. They share per­son­al his­to­ries, dis­cussing their culi­nary likes and their expe­ri­ences with iden­ti­ty and attrac­tion, with Felix reveal­ing his bisex­u­al­i­ty.

The exhil­a­rat­ing exchange takes a sud­den turn as they run out of gas, halt­ing their jour­ney. As they set­tle into the silence of the star­lit night, Felix pre­pares to share the intrigu­ing his­to­ry of Miles’ fam­i­ly, specif­i­cal­ly the tale of Alon­so Fall, who had a hid­den rela­tion­ship with a man. The chap­ter ends with a sense of antic­i­pa­tion for the sto­ries to unfold, punc­tu­at­ed by the arrival of Dizzy, who inter­rupts their moment, remind­ing read­ers of the con­nec­tive threads of friend­ship, iden­ti­ty, and lega­cy with­in their jour­ney.