"Probably not," Neil says, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling again. It might have been, or might just be that he's overdramatic and prone to these dark thoughts, and that that place seemed to feed them to him even more than normal.

He doesn't admit that he sort of hoped he'd waste away up there. He doesn't want to admit that he wishes for that with a startling regularity. That sounds too much like a cry for attention, and he doesn't want that. He just wants to be normal.