“I missed you.”

There was a pause. Then Tariq turned to her with a half-grinning, half- grimacing look of distaste. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

In Tariq’s grimace, Laila learned that boys differed from girls in this regard. They didn’t make a show of friendship. They felt no urge, no need, for this sort of talk. Laila imagined it had been this way for her brothers too. Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly…

–A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini