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me up to the surface. I coughed, gasped for air, and vomited all at the same time. I even thrashed out for something solid to grab on to, but she didn’t let go. She held on to me, leaning me against a floating spongy thing, and then I had control of myself.
    Soon I could look at her and see that she was an angel. Long dark hair wet and plastered against her face, long eyelashes, chocolate eyes. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Then she turned us, the sun moved behind her, and all I could see was her outline glowing against the blue sky.
    I remembered that moment, her saving me, and I held on to that.
    She saved me. My fake life was only possible because of her. I couldn’t exist in this world if she didn’t too.
    I remembered seeing her at school for the first time. She was playing some weird game I didn’t understand with another girl and two boys on the playground. She was laughing, and the waves of her hair shook behind her. That laugh, that smile, it loosened up the fear knotted inside me, the fear of being alone, because if something that good and pure and happy existed here, it meant there was hope for me.
    I recalled every memory of her I could think of: when she walked to school with her brother, ruffling his hair and teasing him; when she swam, in school meets and in the ocean, how she moved through the water like she was part of it; when she ate lunch on campus with a book on her lap; when she sat in the library and tutored underclassmen; when she was in the auditorium for debates. Even the nights when she was on the beach this summer with another guy.
    And as I remembered these things, as I tried to put her back together, I realized what it was that I felt for her. It wasn’t just a crush like Eli thought, and it wasn’t even a weird obsession like Reid thought.
    I loved her.
    It didn’t matter that she didn’t know me or that I had never gotten up the nerve to speak to her. I didn’t need to. What I felt for her, it wasn’t about me. It was just about her. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to smile, whether it was small and sly, a secret smile she was sharing with a friend, or wide and contagious, the kind that turned people’s heads and made them smile too. I wanted her to laugh, the louder the better. I wanted her to feel light, happy, free. I wanted her to have everything good and perfect in this world, and I wanted to shield her from stress and sadness, no matter how small or insignificant.
    More than anything, I wanted her to live. Needed her to live.
    “Stay with me.” My voice cracked as I said it. I just wasn’t sure my power would be enough. “Janelle, stay with me.”
    Then, as if she heard me, her eyes fluttered open, but they were unfocused.
    “Hold on, Janelle. Hold on,” I whispered. I pushed her collarbone back through the skin, and set it against the other half. I winced, feeling the two ragged ends scraping together. In the next second they went smooth, as I fused the bones. She still wasn’t breathing.
    “I’m sorry. You’re gonna feel this.” Next came her spinal cord. I felt her body go rigid when the connection reestablished.
    She coughed blood onto my shirt. Which meant her lungs were working. One of my tears fell onto her neck.
    “Ben!” It was Eli calling my name, from the direction of the truck, but I couldn’t look up or see what he wanted. I needed all my focus to fix the damage.
    I moved my hand down her arm, healing the cuts she had, and then I slipped my hand under her back, feeling for the second break in her spine. When I touched it, her eyes closed and her body relaxed. She passed out.
    Panic seized my chest. There was a chance that this was too much. That what I was doing to her body was too much trauma, too much energy. I could end up hurting her even more or sending her into shock or something. I thought of how she had looked right before the truck hit. Her red bathing suit and shorts, tanned skin, her brown hair pulled back on top