Brainy flailed against Lyle's shoulder, the sadness suddenly swinging around to anger. It wasn't a punch so much as a slight shove of physically-expressed frustration.

Brainy's voice was high and thin and as fragile as spun sugar.

"Why did you act so disinterested? 'You'll forgive me if I don't kiss you now.'" Another flail. "'I've had worse'?"

Eidetic memory aside, he parroted back Lyle's words as if they've impressed themselves so painfully into his memory that he would have remembered them even if he didn't remember everything.