Something was wrong, because the world was up-side-down. The dark, leafless trees were spinning in circles, the wet bark black against the pale gray sky, swirling and blending together. Her voice was above me, calling me back, but I couldn’t answer—my tongue was too dry and heavy to move. There was sudden silence as my eyes closed, and the air left my lungs just before the world came crashing down, falling away, leaving only blackness.

I woke up in bed, but the sheets and blankets weren’t mine. They were too starchy, too clean and perfect to be mine. The fluorescent white lights stung my eyes, and then the acid smell of cleaner hit me. I sank further into the hard pillow, groaning. Back in the hospital.

I was going to fall asleep again, but someone woke me with their clacking shoes on the hallway’s tiled floor. The man asked, How are you doing? and I answered that I was fine, like I was supposed to. He was dressed in a white lab coat, like they were experimenting on me. My head still felt fuzzy, and I tried to sit up but the world was spinning again. What happened? I asked him, but he just stared at me.

You had another crash, he said simply. Don’t you remember? I shook my head no, because I remembered nothing but the world turning up-side-down and then I was on the ceiling, staring at the upside-down person beside me.

Jessica. I’d left her upside-down. Where was she now?

My head began to clear.

“Your blood sugar’s stable now, Sam,” the doctor said. “You can go as soon as your mother checks you out.” He left, and a nurse came in with a tray of food.

“Where’s my friend?” I asked her. She put the tray down on the table beside my bed and stared at me with a small smile. “It’ll be okay, Sam,” she said softly.

I frowned as she checked the monitor for my heartrate and turned to leave.

“Is the world okay?” I asked her before she could go. She looked back at me and shook her head before walking out the door, closing it behind her.

Jessica came to see me after a while. She stared mostly at the IV in my arm, drip-drip-dripping. It scared me too, but at least I didn’t stare at it. And where were my parents?

Her eyes moved from her shoes to my face. “Hey Sam.” A silver ribbon held back her thin, blond hair. I wanted to tear it from her head, to let her hair fall freely around her shoulders. “Do you want a piece of chocolate?” she finally asked, staring into my eyes. Were they hollow? Did she find my sunken, bleary, blood-shot eyes beautiful anymore, now that we were no longer children? I nodded yes, that I would love some chocolate, and she broke off a piece and handed it to me. I thanked her and popped it into my mouth. We were both silent for a long while.

“Did your mom come?” Jessica finally asked, and I laughed.

“No, my mom didn’t come. Dad probably hasn’t even heard yet.” I felt the pain stab at my heart, but it didn’t mean anything. Anyway, I didn’t need them.

“Yeah, that figures,” Jessica said, staring at my fingers, which were like spiders tapping on the side table. I wished they’d stop messing with my body, poking and prodding me and keeping me trapped in this sterile hospital bed. I stared at the blank, windowless wall of the hospital room, waiting for Jessica to say something to break the silence. I couldn’t stand silence, because then I was left with my own emotions. I’d rather deal with someone else’s feelings.

“Well, I’ll see you,” she said at last, and was gone. She was tired of hospitals and me being in them, but I still missed her company, if not her kisses.

Mom finally came to the hospital to get me. She acted all sorry to the doctors, like it was her fault, but in the car home she lectured me on hospital bills and taking better care of myself. Something about responsibility. I tuned out because she was always lecturing me on something, and I was enjoying staring at the fresh snow. The little white flakes were twirling from the sky, creating a soft covering over the grass, making me smile. They were extremely distracting.

“It’s not funny,” my mother snapped, jerking the steering wheel to avoid an oncoming car. I grabbed the sides of my seat. The car made some strange wheezing and chugging noises as she shifted into third gear, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable impact. Have I mentioned that my mother drives like a maniac? “You have to start being responsible for your own self. You’re lucky you were with Jessica again, so she could call an ambulance. Otherwise, who knows, Sam, you could have died.”

“I wouldn’t have died,” I muttered, thinking about the blackness of death that was all too much like sleep. My mother didn’t hear me. I looked out the window again, and saw that little tufts of green were all that was left of the grass under the thin covering of snow, still falling from the sky.

We got home intact, and after climbing the three flights of stairs, I immediately downed a glass of orange juice, and then went to my room to sulk, and maybe read a little. I tuned the radio to the station that plays all the bad pop music, and I opened Beyond Good and Evil to my bookmark on page forty-eight.

“The Free Spirit,” I said as I read the title. I smiled. O sancta simplicitiatas! In what strange simplification and falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has got eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple!...

I knew it was a teenage cliché to read him, but I didn’t really care what my mother thought of me. I was so deep into my Nietzsche and my music that I didn’t notice when she came in.

“Turn it down,” she ordered, and I gave in, but I didn’t put down my book. She couldn’t force me to part with my Nietzsche. There was pressure pushing on my chest, so heavy that I could barely breathe. I was waiting for her to ask the dreaded question with no answer, the question that would fling my world into obscurity.

“Could you take out the trash?”

The weight lifted from my chest. Just the trash. I put down the book and ran into the kitchen. Grabbing the black bag, I went out the front door and down the many flights of stairs, pausing at each landing to catch my breath, feeling free and light. I made it to the bottom of the steps and threw the trash into the metal can with a resounding clang. I would choose taking the trash out over testing any day.

At the end of the block, I saw the archway that framed the entrance to the cemetary. Black iron, bent, fashioned into an old gothic design around the edges, and finally brought into a spire at the top. That’s where I’d end up if I kept up this “neglect of my condition,” as the doctors put it. The wind blew mild at my back, and the beauty of the graves beckoned. Maybe I could still visit while I was living, before it became a permanent home. I looked back at our apartment window, picturing my mother making dinner and later worrying about me. Then I started walking towards the graveyard entrance.

Walking under the archway felt like entering another world, the domain of the dead. I strolled on the path, between giant crosses, pillars, and tombs with bars over the dusty stained-glass windows. I finally came to the green bench, where I could sit and see the field of angels with mold growing on their heads and wings, but someone was already sitting there. I would have walked right by him, but I knew him from somewhere.

“Hey,” I said quickly, and then I sat down on the bench beside him.

“Hey,” he said slowly, frowning a little.

“You’re in my home room, right?” I asked, and he nodded. “My name’s Sam,” I said, and stuck out my hand.

“Devon,” he said as he shook my hand. I felt heat rush through my body, and I withdrew my hand and then we both turned back to the angels. A cool wind blew by, dead leaves skimming the ground around our feet. I hoped that I wasn’t blushing.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” I said softly. He smiled.

“They’re the reason I come down here every night.” He turned to me with bright eyes. “Wait until you see them at sunset.” Then he looked up at the sky and grimaced. “If God’s a painter, he has a mean sense of humor.”

I gazed warily at the washed out gray sky. “I don’t believe in God.”

He turned to me and grinned. “Neither do I,” he said, “but it sure makes for great poetry.”

I laughed. “I took a friend here, once, to watch the angels,” I said. “She was so happy. You should have seen her. She was worse than me.”

“Who?” Devon asked, and I remembered that we went to the same school.

“Jessica? Blond hair, my height.”

“Oh yeah,” Devon said, sitting up. “She hangs out with Jake and Carl and them, right?”

I blinked. “Right,” I said. I tilted my head to one side. “You know her?”

Devon smiled. “I know everyone,” he said playfully. “But yeah, she’s cool.”

“Yeah,” I said softly, “she is cool.”

“So we know the same people!” he said, laughing. “But we’ve never met.”

“Well, now we have,” I said. We smiled at each other for a few seconds, but then I averted my eyes, and he did the same. I saw a faint pink creep up around his cheeks, and knew that my blush was visible this time, too. Instead of staring at each other, we stared at the fading light of the sunset against the stone angels.

When the sky had gone black, he turned to me. “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked. I suddenly felt like I had swallowed a handful of live cicadas.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, feeling those wings brushing against the sides of my stomach. My heart was beating incredibly fast.

“Same place, but earlier?” he asked.

“Maybe… one?” I said breathlessly.

“Sure,” he said, smiling. “Here, give me your phone.”

“What?” I asked, but I erased the missed calls from my mother and handed him my cell phone.

“There, you’ve got my number,” he said, and gave me back my phone. “Call me if something comes up, and we’ll reschedule, okay?” Devon asked, still smiling.

“Sure,” I said, not thinking straight. He stood to go.

“I’ll see you, Sam,” he said, that smile still on his face.

“Bye Devon,” I called to him as he left the graveyard. I sighed contentedly and smiled to myself. I sat for a little longer, staring at the darkened faces of the angels, until I remembered Mom. “Oh shit,” I moaned. I ran the whole way back to our apartment.

“Sam!” Mom barked when she opened the door. “Where the hell were you? Why was your phone off?” Her long black hair was pulled tightly back from her face, and her wrinkles stood out, making her look old and tired.

“I was out walking, sorry,” I said quickly, brushing past her into the house. I heard her sigh and shut the door, this time double-locking it. I padded into the kitchen searching for food, and Mom came in behind me, going back to stand at the stove that barely worked. Mom was cooking dinner, an apron tied around her waist, slippers and pajamas underneath, and one hand deep in an oven mitt while the other stirred whatever was in the pan. I went straight for the fridge, but after studying each shelf, I went to the freezer instead for a no-sugar icey thing that was fruity and yummy. Taking the container and a spoon, I went back to the den to watch TV. I settled in for my daily dose of Animal Planet, attacking the frozen thing with my spoon and occassionally getting to eat a few bites.

Wolves are social creatures. Packs often consist of two to five individuals, usually with a defined alpha male and female. The lowest-ranking member of a pack is the omega. The omega is often not as useful to the pack, and so takes care of any pups, and is mistreated by the higher-ranking members. Sometimes, when alphas abuse the omega, they later compensate by allowing them a larger portion of meat from the kill.

“Sam, did you test today?” Mom shouted from the kitchen. She had finally remembered to ask the dreaded question, and no, I hadn’t tested, and I didn’t want to lie again, although it was getting easier every time. I turned the volume on the TV up higher and pretended I hadn’t heard.

“Sam?” she yelled, stepping into the room. “Turn that down!”

“What?” I shouted over the TV, turning it down.

“I asked if you had tested today,” Mom snapped, grabbing the remote from my hands and turning the TV off.

“Yeah,” I lied, “it’s fine.” Mom sighed heavily, able to breathe again, wanting to believe that I was telling the truth. I looked away.

In the silence that followed, the phone rang shrilly. I jumped from the couch and dove for the receiver.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hey Sam,” Jessica said on the other line, “if you’re done with dinner, do you want to get coffee or something?”

“Sorry, Jes,” I said, running a hand through my short, greasy hair and glancing at Mom, standing with hands on her hips, frowning. “I haven’t eaten dinner, and I don’t think my mom wants me out tonight.”

“Oh,” Jessica said dejectedly. “Okay.” She sounded so wretched, even over the phone, but I really didn’t want to see her.

“Well, see ya,” I said quickly.

“Bye,” she nearly whispered, and I hung up the phone. I stared at the white wall, thinking. Devon had given me his number. I could call him.

Then Mom strode past me into the kitchen, said, “Dinner’s ready,” and expected me to follow her, so I did. The two of us sat down at our small table together. Mom had made stir-fry, everything cooked in olive oil with lots of vegetables and the occasional clump of rice.

After dinner, back in my room, I thought about testing for real, even doing it in front of my mom to show her, but instead I just tried to sleep, Devon still on my mind.