When I reached the bench the next afternoon, Devon was already sitting there, tossing a tennis ball back and forth between his hands.

“Hey Devon!” I called, and he looked up, grinning.

“Sam!” he said. “You’re late.”

“My mom, um, made me… brush my teeth. Before I left.” I smiled and tried to act casual about lying to Devon. He suddenly seemed like someone I had known all my life, someone who I should never lie to, and I felt like an evil person.

“What’s that?” Devon asked, pointing to my journal tucked under one arm.

“You can’t read it,” I said quickly, and then added, “sorry.”

Devon raised his eyebrows. “Love notes in there?” he asked, half-joking. “Fantasies?”

I blushed again. “It’s just some poetry stuff,” I said in my defense, but I could tell that Devon wasn’t satisfied.

“So, if I can’t read the notebook… what now?”

“Coffee?” I suggested.

“Always a last resort,” Devon said with a smile. “All right, I’ll go with it.”

We were sitting at a table, chatting about the government and sipping coffee, mine black and Devon’s stained with sugar. The conversation moved quickly to peace protests.

“We were marching downtown last weekend, Jordan, and Annie, and a bunch of people, for the anti-war thing.”

“I was there too,” I said excitedly. “Did you see all those cops?”

We spent the afternoon just talking, until we had both had too much coffee and we needed to get the caffeine out of our systems.

“Let’s go back to the graveyard,” Devon suggested, and we set off. Reaching the arch, Devon pulled out the tennis ball from his pocket.

“I’ll throw it over, try to catch it,” he told me, and waited. I ran to the other side, and he threw the ball high over the arch. I caught it easily, and threw it back to him. I hadn’t played a simple game of catch since my dad died when I was seven. I tried not to remember him, because I wanted to be happy around Devon.

“Throw it here,” I called, running a little ways down the bike path. The yellow flew quickly, but I caught and returned it in the same motion. Devon laughed and took a pitcher’s stance, swinging his arm and putting his whole body into the next throw. I caught it on the tips of my fingers, and paused to glance at the sky, glazed over with clouds. A wind blew up from nowhere, rattling the bare branches of the dormant trees as I arced the ball up, high above us. It caught the wind and swayed to one side, but Devon ran and caught it easily. He threw a high ball back to me, and I dove for it, but this time I missed. The ball fell a few feet away in the deep snow, and I landed half on the pavement, ripping the skin on my elbow. I winced and gritted my teeth as the pain spread from the wound to the surrounding area. The wind was cold and it chilled the blood, forming a crust. Devon came up and sat beside me, the tennis ball forgotten in the drifts.

“Let me see it,” he said gently, reaching out a hand, his fingertips brushing my arm. I jerked away from him and glared at no one. He grabbed my wrist tightly and pulled my arm towards him, twisting it to get a better view of my elbow. He stared at it critically, unafraid of the blood, while I shivered at the sight.

“Here,” he said, scooping up a pile of some snow nearby and holding it out to me, “rub some snow on it.” I wished he would leave me alone, that I could fade out of my miserable existence and that no one would care. I hated when people cared. Even so, I took the frozen white heap and held it to my bloody elbow, hissing as the ice touched my fiery skin. We watched the snow turn red, there on my arm, and I started to cry as it melted away, dripping pink water onto the ground.

“Sam, what?” he asked, truly concerned. “It’s just a skinned elbow, it’s not going to kill you.” He really cared about me. That made me cry harder. The tears dripped down my face and fell into my mouth as I choked out a response.

“It won’t go away, Devon. I have this disease, and I try not to pay attention to it, but it doesn’t go away!” I squinted my eyes shut, not daring to look at him or any of the world. If only I could just fade away.

“Sam,” he said, “what disease?”

“Devon, I have diabetes,” I said matter-of-factly, and he took it with a simple nod.

“Okay, so?” he said, tilting his head. “Shouldn’t you pay attention to it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t take my insulin, or even test when I should.”

I saw the thoughts moving around in his head. “How long has it been since you tested?” he asked carefully.

I gulped and looked away again, this time at nothing, the emptiness. I had to tell him the truth. “The day before I saw you.” I took a shuddering breath. “And,” I whispered, “and it was so high, but I didn’t do anything, I just sat there.”

“Then you crashed?” Devon asked, and I nodded. “Sam,” he said weakly, looking at me, but I couldn’t look at him, “this stuff can really hurt you. If you don’t take the insulin...”

“Yeah. I know. I could die. But at least I wouldn’t be a... a freak,” I spat, glaring at my elbow, where I could still see my own blood, the blood that didn’t work right, dripping onto the snow, staining it a deeper red.

“Sam, come on. Look at me.” Devon grabbed my chin and turned my face so that I was looking into his eyes, so that I couldn’t look away. My blue eyes stared into the caverns of his dark ones, and I knew that he cared about me.

“It’s okay, Sam. I don’t care about your stupid diabetes.” Devon said, and smiled at me, though still concerned. I started to cry again, leaning my head on his shoulder and letting the tears fall onto his shirt. He sat there, and didn’t say anything, just put his arm around me and watched the sky get darker.

We walked home side by side, still being silent. Before we parted, I held him close and whispered in his ear, “Thanks.” He just smiled, and waved, and then he was gone.

I climbed the stairs to our apartment slowly. Mom gave me a look at the door, wondering why I had been out so late again, but she didn’t say anything. She probably thought I was doing drugs. I went straight to my room and tested before I could think about it, before I could start to shiver from the sight of my own blood. My blood sugar was way too high, of course, so I got out the insulin shots and aligned the needle to my skin. I took a few steady breaths, and punctured my skin with the needle. I gasped and shot the insulin into my system, watching the needle with wide eyes. I quickly withdrew it, threw it away, and went to wipe off my arm. When I stepped outside my door, grasping my arm as if it was injured, I saw my mother. She smiled at me and started to cry.

“Mom,” I pleaded, “don’t cry!” There had been enough tears for one day. She shook her head and wrapped her arms around me, drawing me close.

“Thank you, Sam,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

And I began to cry, too.