A Separate Peace

what had gene wished he could have done for finny after the fall? what was he glad that he didnt do it?

a separate peace

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The boys’ relationship becomes a model of codependency, with each feeding off of, and becoming fulfilled by, the other. This codependency preempts the development of their individual identities, perhaps dangerously: by living within their own private illusion that World War II is a mere conspiracy and continuing to believe that Gene (and Finny through him) will go to the Olympics and that the outside world can never curtail their dreams, the boys are refusing to grow up and develop their own ambitions and responsibilities. Not even Finny’s death, though it separates them physically, can truly untangle Gene’s identity from Finny’s—he feels as though Finny’s funeral is his own. In a sense, the reader realizes, the funeral is indeed Gene’s own; so much of him is merged with Finny that it is difficult to imagine one boy continuing to exist without the other. It is perhaps only his ultimate understanding that Finny alone had no enemy that allows the older Gene to reestablish a separate identity—one that he considers, however, inferior to Finny’s.

Source(s)

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/separate/themes.html

The relationship between the two boys after Finny's accident spans more than a few chapters here. I'm not sre what the "one" thing is........ do you have a chapter?