And some people, with no history and no obligation at all, simply see a person in trouble and move toward them, because that is the kind of person they are — because showing up is not something they do for people they owe, but something they do because it is who they are.

Andrew owed me everything and gave me nothing.

Zachary owed me nothing and gave me a way out.

I stopped, after that day, measuring people by how long I had known them, and started measuring them by a single, simpler question: when I was on the floor, did they move toward me, or away?

It is the only measure of a person that has ever told me the truth.

Chapter 8 — The Coffee Shop