He was dead. Quite dead, this moon man. He was quite dead. He had lived his life collecting seeds, catching fish, and hunting kangaroos. He had been alive, once, but a time came when weakness overtook him, his limbs crumpled, disease plagued him, and all the aromatic leaves provided by the earth could not heal him. And so this moon man died.

"I will revive you," said his friend.

But this moon man did not believe.

"I will revive you," his friend repeated. "I have power. I will revive you. For three days and three nights you will remain dead, and on the fourth day, you will awaken. I will revive you."

This moon man did not believe. He thought that he had died, and though his spirit lived on, his body was quite dead.

But three days passed. And three nights passed. And on the fourth day, this moon man lifted his head, his shoulders, his chest, and his legs. He rose, because of the cleverness of his friend, and so this is why the moon rises each night, to show us that we are never dead for long.

Charley had been dreaming a lot in the past few weeks. After his accident, he hadn't dreamed at all, and he remembered dreams being sparse even in his years before it all happened. But since meeting Audrey, it seemed his dreams had become not only more frequent but also more vivid. He'd awake from them and recall all their details for hours, but they'd fade by evening, when he'd go to bed and dream again. Sometimes he was upset that he couldn't tell every single one to Audrey; when she was there for a visit (and she'd been coming almost four or five days out of the week, now), he would detail what he'd seen and what had happened. Most of his dreams were odd snippets of his past life playing out in surreal landscapes, with animals or people sprinkled in at random. He loved to talk about them. On the days when Audrey was not there, he became restless and would try to tell the nurses when they came to help him, or when he went to physical therapy, but they weren't really interested like Audrey was. They were more interested in helping him regain use of his appendages—on his right hand, he still had his five fingers, which was great, because he had been right-handed before the accident. The skin on the fingers was taut, having had to have been stretched to cover the burnt muscle below, but now that he had the will to use his hands again, he was quickly learning ways to deal with the lack of agility in his fingers and wrist. His left hand was missing two fingers, but this no longer bothered him, because he had never used that hand. They'd unwrapped his hands about a week back, and he had been able to leave them that way. Ellen—his physical therapist—encouraged him to try to use a pen and to attempt to use a fork when he could. His legs, too, were beginning to show signs of improvement. He could make them move a little—could move his feet when prompted and tense the muscles in his thighs and calves. Ellen said that if he persisted, he may be able to walk again within a year's time. If he could at least regulate his arms and hands enough and sit up, he'd be able to get into a wheelchair.

He hadn't yet thought about where he'd go, even if he could get into a wheelchair. Prior to meeting Audrey, he'd believed that this hospital room would be all he saw for the rest of his life, and his Aunt Kate had given him no hope to think otherwise. In fact, when the accident had happened, she pretty much told him that this was it—he was done with everything. This was his life, now.

Audrey had given him reason to believe in himself. He had begun to see past his own ugliness, past appearance. She had been able to do it, unlike Will, and unlike his aunt. They had hated visiting him. They'd detested being reminded of their own faults but also had just plain hated to look at the mutilated corpse-of-a-boy that he had become. He had been able to see the disgust and loathing in their faces—it wasn't hard to do! They'd not been able to hide their fear of him. They hadn't even tried to hide it, so he'd known only that he was hideous and couldn't be looked upon. He would think that even the nurses and doctors attending to him hated being anywhere near him. He'd become so virulently bitter not just because his life was ruined but because it seemed to him that everyone else thought he was ruining their lives as well. He'd wished he was dead every day but had been unable to move enough to do anything about it. He'd even grown to the point where he wouldn't eat, but they'd just put IV's in him. Last week, during Audrey's visit, he'd sat up enough to eat soup and jello and mashed potatoes, partially on his own, but somewhat with her help.

Charley reflected that she had saved his life, which he had deemed lost. It was time he tell her all that had happened; she deserved to know.

When she arrived that day, the first thing Charley noticed was her smiling face. She was cheerful, as always, and she entered the room with an armful of magazines and a list of popular movies and series to stream, which she'd promised to bring him in order to reacquaint him with what was going on "outside," as they referred to everything beyond the hospital. Last week, she'd shared some of her playlists with him, so he could listen to what everyone else their age was listening to.

He was propped up on some pillows, and he felt the usual tightening of his face as it broke into what little of a smile he could offer her.

"No need to smile, Charley!" she chirped, at this point knowing all the nuances of his strange facial expressions. "I'm not really deserving today. I can't stay too long, and I'm really sorry."

He did feel a brief surge of disappointment.

"But I'll make it up this weekend, because I'll spend all Saturday here. How's that? Now that I'm on summer vacation, I don't have a lot to do. But the reason I can't stay today is that I have a job interview at this real cute stationary shop. I need to start saving up for a car for next year, so I hope I get the job. But I'll be here Saturday, ok?"

"Don't worry about it," he replied. "Not like I'm going anywhere."

Audrey laughed at his attempted sarcasm. "You will be, soon! I want to take you outside as soon as you can get in the wheelchair, because it is gorgeous weather. In fact . . ." she went over to the windows and twisted the blinds open. "See the sunlight? Isn't it beautiful? I'm going to open your windows so you can feel it."

He knew better than to protest. Audrey wouldn't let him sit in doom and gloom, as she called it, whenever she visited. The nurses for some reason liked to keep his room dark and cool and quiet, like a cave, but she was all about sunshine and music.

"Hey. I found something for you to listen to. You're going to love it." She took the I-Pad off his side table and began swiping around on it. "It's a podcast about this guy that went to jail for murdering his wife, but then they think it might've been an owl, but this woman was a violinist, a which was what caught my--."

"Wait!" Charley said as loud as he could, practically breathless, even though she was the one moving about and talking up a storm. "I want to just talk for a minute."

Audrey put down her phone and looked at him, a little perplexed. "Really? You don't want to hear this?"

"I do," he smiled. "But I've got all the time in the world to listen to podcasts. You're only here for a short time, and I have something I want to tell you."

She looked interested and came to sit down by his bed. "What?"

"I want to tell you . . . how all this happened." A look crossed her face that told Charley she'd been waiting for this moment since meeting him. He'd known she was curious; he'd been able to tell from the way she steered conversations, and he wasn't annoyed with her curiosity. It was only natural, when seeing him, to wonder what could have possibly done such damage. If she was smart, she could have already figured out what had happened, and maybe she had, but he wanted to tell her in his own words, now. The way he knew it.

"Are you sure, Charley?" Audrey had taken on a sudden serious tone and expression. "I won't say I'm not curious, but if it's painful or something—"

"Not anymore, it's not," he said. "I wouldn't want to tell you if it was."

A kind grin creased her cheeks. "All right. Tell me whatever you want."

He took a deep breath. "You know I lived with my aunt, but she didn't care about me, really. I went to boarding school, anyway, but last summer, I went home to stay with her. She wasn't happy about it, but the boarding school was having money problems and couldn't keep us for the summer like usual.

"When I got home, I realized the reason she didn't want me there was because she lived a really bad life. I mean, she was always bringing home a different guy; it seemed, like, every night. And she'd always say it was business and tell me to go to my room or the basement. I didn't have to be a genius to know what was really going on. She just hated me being there. Toward the end of the summer, I noticed that there was one guy she was seeing more than the others. She even introduced me to him. I forget his name, but he owned a gallery somewhere—I remember that much. The weird thing is, he actually talked to me, like he was interested in who I was. He said he had a daughter about my age and everything. He seemed—I can't really be sure—but he seemed to feel kind of bad about things. About seeing my aunt. I couldn't really tell, but he was the nicest man I saw her with."

He paused to cough and waved his right hand a little bit; Audrey knew he was indicating that he needed a drink of water. She helped him get it, holding the cup over his hands as if he was a child, keeping him from spilling water down his chin and neck. Then he continued.

"One night, at the end of the summer, two days before I was supposed to go back to school, my aunt told me she wanted to take me out to a strings concert at the symphony, to say goodbye before I went off to school again. I was really surprised; she'd never done anything like that, never even sent me birthday cards. I remember she was kind of in a bad mood, so it was weird that she wanted to go to the symphony. But I was too excited to really think about it being weird. I was so happy that she knew how much I loved hearing strings, because I used to play the violin. So I got dressed nice and we went out, but really quickly I saw that her plan was not about taking me to the symphony at all. She'd totally, completely lied to me. We went to this neighborhood where that guy had his art gallery. Long story short, I figured out that Aunt Kate was just using me as an excuse to see that man again; apparently the guy's daughter was going to be there for some sort of party and my aunt was going to act like she just wanted to introduce us because I needed a friend in the city or something. That way, she'd get to see that man again. I don't know everything behind it, but when we pulled up there and I got what was really going on, I was so mad. I refused to go in. I wouldn't do it. Aunt Kate was furious with me—we got in this big argument, but I didn't care. I just walked away. I wish I'd just gone into that stupid gallery . . . but I didn't.

"I left my aunt and just walked down the street. She hated me. For the first time in my life, I thought she cared—but it was just a lie for her. The thing was, I'd wanted so bad to actually go to the symphony. I hadn't done anything like that all summer. But I just walked, and I kept walking. I didn't even look back. And then I did the stupidest thing I've ever done; I put out my thumb like a hitchhiker, hoping I could just get a ride home."

Charley paused for another drink of water. Audrey looked like she wanted to say something, but she instead urged him to finish his story. An ominous seriousness hung heavy in the hospital room, contrasting starkly with the warm, sunny light pouring through the windows.

"The first person that pulled up was this red-headed guy, looked pretty weird to me, but I didn't care. I just wanted out of there. I had in my mind to go home, pack my bags, and spend the night at the train station, then maybe catch an early ride back to school. When I got in the car and told him where I wanted to go, he'd said no problem and driven off. He seemed nice enough, but after a few minutes I realized he was drunk. Like, really drunk. He was swerving and not really paying attention to the road, and I got scared. I tried—tried to tell him to stop—I just . . . he wouldn't stop. Said he was totally fine. I wanted to get out. Everything was going so wrong . . ."

He stopped his story for a moment, feeling the anger rising up inside of him. He didn't want to feel it—had thought he was over it—but clearly, he wasn't. Was he stupid to have told her all this? It didn't matter, anymore. He had to finish the story, now. He couldn't just leave it, but his throat was dry again, and he felt tears choking the back of his mouth.

To his surprise, Audrey quietly finished the story: "At an intersection, he wrapped his car around a pole, and it caught on fire. He got out, but you didn't."

For the first time during his recounting, Charley turned to look at her. Had he been able to widen his eyes, he would have.

She must have sensed his shock. "I found an article about it, Charley. I'm sorry if it was wrong of me. I just wanted to know."

His gaze slowly returned to the ceiling. He stared at the tiles crisscrossing it. Sniffed a little. At length, he said, "It was all my fault, and I know that." His words were strained. "But it's all so . . . senseless."

The room was quiet for a bit, and Charley managed to regain his composure.

"Can I tell you something?" Audrey asked gravely.

Charley nodded his consent.

"Don't be freaked out, but I think I'm the girl that your aunt was trying to get you to meet."

Her words didn't really sink in at first. "What?"

"You said your aunt was seeing some man. He owned an art gallery. He had a daughter. She was having a party that night."

"Yes?"

"Was the man's name Ben King?"

Charley thought for a moment. His heart stirred. "Yes . . . I think it was . . ."

"He's my father. I'm Audrey King, and the night of August 28th, I was having a reception at his art gallery for some silly contest I won. You were supposed to meet me that night."

This realization took a while to really sink in. Charley couldn't believe what she had just said and had to ask her for more details—what the gallery was called, where it was located, whether she knew his aunt (which she didn't, though she'd known her father had been having an affair with someone). When he'd ascertained that she was definitely the daughter of the man his aunt had been seeing those eight months ago, he didn't know what to think. He wasn't mad—that would have been stupid. Audrey had been the nicest, most amazing person he'd ever met, and even though his thoughts circulating around his aunt and the man she'd tricked him into seeing that night were not kind ones, he could hardly blame Audrey for their behavior. The poor girl had been just as angry at her father, she said—that he'd been fooling around with someone so soon after her parents' divorce (and maybe even before it, for all she knew). They'd both been victims of the adults in their lives, and Charley couldn't blame her for anything that had happened to him. In fact, he felt somehow more deeply connected to her than he had before they'd discovered their close encounter.

Softly, with a hint of embarrassment, Audrey revealed, "I'm not saying in any way that I like what happened to you—I hate it so much . . . it's so unfair! But, Charley . . ." she gave him the most sincere look he'd ever seen; it seemed out of place on her usually smiling face. "Charley, I'm glad you met me now, and not that night." She looked at her lap. "I've seen your picture before . . . before this. You would never have looked twice at someone like me."

He made a sound that could only be considered a gasp. "Stop it, Audrey."

"I mean it. I'm not the prettiest girl you've ever seen, and I know that. It's all right."

"Now who needs to stop the self-pity?" He turned to her and smiled his usual slit-of-a-smile.

"But Charley—"

"Stop. Just . . . don't say anything else about it." They were quiet again, a little awkward in the silence, this time, but then the boy added, "If this is what it took to meet you, then I wouldn't take it back. You're the most beautiful person I've ever known. And as soon as I can, I'm going to get out of this bed and into a wheelchair, and then I'll start walking again, and as long as you don't mind being seen in public with me, I'll go anywhere you want to go."

Audrey's eyes sparkled so much they competed with the sunlight. She put her hand on his left hand, nearest her, and felt where he was missing two fingers, but it didn't bother her. She wasn't afraid of seeing him anymore. He was just a person, like her.

"Oh!" she said, jumping abruptly. "I almost forgot! Before I go, I really want you to listen to this, all right? Then you have to tell me what you think on Saturday, whether it was the owl or the husband! And wait until you hear this, Charley--this is why I first started listening."

The moment the podcast began, a poignant, piercing, bittersweet melody on a solitary violin grew and spun its way throughout the room. Audrey sat by Charley's bedside, holding his hand, and he felt tears roll down his cheeks.