Crosby 11 and Mondo 10

Crosby 13 and Mondo 12

Mondo's hand, cold and Crosby imagined already rubbery in his hand. Crosby leaned close to their interlocked hands, his dry lips just grazing them, breathing words. Useless words. Words about how Mondo would surely be fine, how the hospital they were in was temporary, how he loved him. Only the last words were true.

Crosby sat in a stiff plastic chair pulled so close to the hospital bed Mondo lay in that he could see the intermittent flutter of Mondo's eyelashes as he slept. Mondo's parents, tall and statue like in their pasts, slouched like weeping willows over their son on the opposite side of the bed. The mother, so much like her son with her long curling black hair, made darker by her alabaster skin, had not stopped crying since she had walked into the stark antiseptic room. Even as she listened to the doctor's bleak assessment of Mondo's failing heart, she had cried silent hot tears that she didn't wipe away. Even as Crosby held her son's hand, his knuckles turning white with the force, she cried.

She thought about how only weeks ago Mondo had been running, sprinting even, with his friend, Crosby up the largest hill they could find. 'And to do what?' she wondered now staring at the two boys through a curtain of tears. There had been no purpose in their running, only the youthful determination to do something. Anything. Even if it was pointless. If she had the foresight she would have urged her past self to put an end to the boys' dalliances with the outdoors. She would have forced her son to save his heart for more important things. They never did reach the top of that hill. And now they never would.

Mondo's mother keeled over with the weight of everything, her lungs parched for air as if someone had punched her squarely in her grief shrunken stomach. She wailed. Inhumanly. A sound so awful and filled with longing, Crosby's eyes welled just watching her and Mondo's father rushed her from the room and into the hall.

Crosby turned back to Mondo who was still sleeping, unperturbed by the noise. Crosby held his even tighter. He hoped the pain would remind Mondo to come back to him, to his family.