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a diminished oxygen supply, Jonas urged the doctors to attempt a more aggressive form of treatment, but the doctors felt that Adam’s health was too fragile to bear it. Obviously, this was difficult for Jonas to hear. Still, he managed to use his keen understanding of medicine to face a devastating prognosis with learned optimism. Jonas would make an excellent physician. I knew that for sure.
    Observing him reminded me of Mrs. Danziger, our English teacher. She was bright, sophisticated, degreed, and had a vocabulary that had us flipping through the dictionary regularly to keep up. Then there was Mr. Lipton, our history teacher. Average in intelligence—no use for Webster’s when he spoke—Mr. Lipton knew how to teach , which embodied a lot more than spoon-feeding us the War of 1812. That element that differentiates the good teachers from the great teachers is the same that separates the good doctors from the great doctors. In hospitals and doctors’ offices, they call it good bedside manner, and I suppose it can be indicative of teachers’ strengths as well. Jonas had those added ingredients: the patient, selfless manner, the caring look in his eye, the understanding to be a fantastic doctor. Jonas had great bedside manner. How did I know this for sure? I knew. I watched this guy more closely than I inspected myself in the mirror every morning.

CHAPTER 3
    School was out, and by then I had cajoled my mother into getting me a job as one of those cheery candy stripers. I would have much preferred a job at the local music store or even the video store so I could get discounts on my favorite items (not the five-fingered kind), but I astounded myself with my enthusiasm toward my new line of work.
    I was pretty much there every day, all day, from the time I finished my shifts, up until dinner. He was there too, and on the days he wasn’t, I felt incomplete. I’d watch for his white Jeep Cherokee every afternoon and hide my disappointment if he didn’t show up.
    Jonas was unlike any other boy I’d ever met, and I probably shouldn’t be calling him a boy when he was clearly seven ever-present years older than I. Over the course of our meetings, I summarized the few things I had learned about him: His family lived in Malibu in what was presumably a large house. It had a name, so I couldn’t be wrong. His little sister, Amy, was the light in his life. He and his dad played a fierce game of tennis back in the day, although he hadn’t picked up a racquet since the diagnosis. His mother, Rachel, was a bright, strong woman, and when he spoke of her, there was no mistaking the pride in his voice. Like most boys his age, Jonas was self-assured and charming. Unlike most boys his age, he possessed a depth about himself that made him appear older than his years.
    I was convinced early on that I had something to do with the latter side of his personality.
    Jonas’s life outside the hospital was foreign to me. There were limits to him, boundaries I constantly tried to push through. I couldn’t tell you his favorite anything, not movie, not book, or song on the radio, so I took pride in the things I did know, the other, more important things. Like, I knew when he was happy to see me. I knew the way he’d try not to smile when he saw me open the door to his father’s room. And I knew when he was amazed at something I’d say or do, which was quite often. I also knew how scared he was to lose his father, how he’d go off into one of the waiting areas, closing the door behind him so that he could think and sulk in private. When he was really angry or upset, I’d catch him smoking a cigarette outside, even when we both knew how oddly ironic it was for him to choose something that might destroy his own lungs.
    “You’re joking me,” I’d said the first time I caught him with one dangling out of his mouth. “The wise doctor-to-be smokes? Don’t you know it’s slow-motion suicide?”
    He puffed away, as though if he puffed hard