forty hours in, the hole opening — "It seems different with me, Boo…"
It seems different with me, Boo. I feel a hole. It’s going to be a huge hole, in a month. A way more than Hal-sized hole.
Context
Withdrawal without a program, arriving on schedule: bats inside at forty hours, the horror-show dreams, the stuck-in-a-chimney immobility, and the thing that marks him as more than a recreational user — the hole, already opening, that he knows will widen daily until he flies apart. The distinction the recovery chapters insist on is drawn here between two boys facing the same abstinence; Pemulis stays functional, and Hal feels the floor of himself give way.