I'd taken the ride with Joey to the emergency room because, because I seemed to be the only one getting through to Craig. Or somewhat through. Things weren't quite getting through.

Joey drove despite the bleeding lip and rapidly puffing eye. I sat in the back seat with Craig, and I felt afraid of him. He was upset and quiet, for once. I realized he really hadn't been quiet in weeks. I made the shushing noises my mom had made to me when I was little and some scraped knee or fight with some grubby kid on the playground had seemed like the end of the world.

"Shhhh, it's okay," I said to him, rubbing his back. I wondered what world was ending.

Caitlin had stayed with Angela, and as we left I saw the frightened look in Angela's eyes.

Joey was calm despite the blood, and he drove steadily toward the hospital. I gazed out the window at Yonge Street, looking at the theater my dad had always taken me to before he'd left. I closed my eyes and thought of the balconies and the paintings on the domed ceiling. I thought of the lobby with the red rug spread over it and the coffee counter and the little tables, and how comforting it was to go there in a storm, my dad's gray scarf wrapped around his neck, my little mitten hand in his.

The hospital was suddenly filling the windshield and I glanced at Craig, his eyes still wet from his tears. I noticed that the knuckles on one of his hands was scraped raw. Had he done that punching Joey or sometime before?

There were no spots close so Joey parked at the edge of the lot, and I wondered how we'd ever cross the whole wide lot. How would we bridge the gap?

In the emergency room waiting room I bit my lip, watched as Craig hugged himself and rocked slightly forward. There was something in his eyes that prevented me from talking to him.

"Ashley, you should go," Joey said, freeing me. Craig glanced at me with this desperate lovesickness that I couldn't get used to, and I pretended I wanted to stay for his sake, but maybe Joey saw the truth in my eyes.

"No. You should go," Joey said, and I nodded, and Craig looked away.

Now I was coming back. Joey had called me, told me that Craig was "stabilized" on psych meds, that he was bipolar. He told me it was a mental illness that caused mood swings, manic behavior and depression.

"What, what causes it?" I'd asked on the phone.

"They think it's a chemical imbalance in the brain, well, it is. They're not too sure what causes it, exactly," Joey said, hedging some bet I was dimly aware of, and he finished by saying, "I think it would be good for Craig if you came to see him,"

So I started the arduous process of doing things that were good for him. I barely felt it as a burden, because underneath that crazy light in his eyes was the boy I loved. I knew I could find him again.

But I felt paper thin, I felt the nerves singing under my skin. I breathed in that glassy air as I headed toward the hospital and the psych floor and my boyfriend who I swore I didn't know anymore.

It wasn't the usual hospital floor where you wander in with flowers and get well cards. I had to be let in a locked door and asked if I had anything sharp or anything dangerous. I shook my head and bit my lip. All the dangerous things were safely tucked away in my head.

I crept toward the room they said was his, and behind a curtain I saw him, sitting Indian style on the bed in his flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt. He was calmer, the jagged aura had burned away. I almost recognized him again.