The first time I ever talked to Dante Sparda was late into the evening one Saturday when I was on my way towards a local library to work on a last minute project.

He was slumped over the stairs leading up to the building, looking half awake and half dead. The boy flicked his fingers back and forth, shaking the hair out of his face, only for it to slide back once again.

"Hey—hey, are you alright?"

Apparently, it took a moment for my voice to register clearly as he slowly turned his head in my direction. His eyes were wide and dark and tinted an odd pinkish color, looking astounded and completely at ease all at the same time. His hands weren't flicking back and forth, I finally noticed, they were shaking.

Shaking shaking shaking.

But he didn't seem to care and neither did the world.

After that first incident, it was like Dante was everywhere. He was always one of those people I saw around town or school but I never really seemed to talk to. He was hooked on drugs and sex and being miserable—actually, that last one was a theory—and he never talked about himself when he was around me.

Actually, we didn't talk all that much.

I was always sorta a loner, keeping to myself while reading a book during lunch. Dante would silently come, never eating anything, and take a place next to me, looking over my shoulder at my choice of literature every now and again. He was skeletal looking, almost, pale with ghastly purple bruises under his eyes.

Every now and then his pant legs would lift up just the tiniest and I'd catch a glimpse of angry scars that never healed correctly or his shirt sleeve would roll and little odd colored bruises where collapsed veins lay would bathe under the sunlight. It was evidence why he looked so broken, clear cut proof that he was drowning down below.

Broken broken broken.

Drowning drowning drowning.

But I didn't know how to save him.

It was four months after I met him that we had an actual conversation—all because of drugs.

I'd gone to the library again that Saturday and checked out a couple books, dreading the walk back home and going back to said 'home' that smelled too much like cheap beer and stale food. But, this was the second time I'd come to find Dante Sparda slumped over on the library steps.

He looked over at me as I approached, stained teeth pulled back into overtly fake junky smile, eyes as wide and dark as ever. "I was waiting for you."

"Well, here I am."

"There you are," He agreed.

"Jesus Christ, what the hell have you ingested now?"

"Dunno, lost count after the fifth line. I think it mighta been laced with somethin' they stole my wallet and left me here—like last time."

I uttered a low hiss of, "Shit." With an after thought of, "Shit." I quickly pulled him to his feet—which proved to be a bad idea since he immediately slumped against my chest—slinging an arm around my shoulder to keep him up right.

"Wha—What book did-ya get?"

"What?"

"Book," He repeated. "Which one?"

"…Pride and Prejudice."

Dante thought about it for a moment."Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us."

"Excuse me?" But, before I could get a solid answer, Dante suddenly started wiggling and twitching, digging his nails—including his uncommonly long pinky nail, the sign of a true addict—into my shoulders crudely, causing me to cry out and almost shove him back onto the pavement.

Instead, I quickly maneuvered us into a quiet back ally, gently sitting Dante against the brick wall as he suddenly started sobbing. His eyes darted back and forth as he shakily started peeling off his shirt, spazing every couple seconds.

I slapped his wrist quickly. "What are you doing?"

His response was to lift up the hem and start clawing at his stomach, leaving behind angry red scratch marks in his path. "B-B-Bugs. Bugs in my skin. Get them out! Get them out!"

Coke bugs. A hallucination. A product of too many drugs too many times.

And I didn't know what to do.

"Nero," He sobbed. "N-Nero. They're…they're—"

I gently pried his hands away from his stomach, wincing at the blood caught underneath his jagged nails. I laced our fingers together and squeezed his hand lightly.

Dark, wide eyes look up and me and breathed, "Help."

Help help help.

But I know now, there's nothing I can do.

I learned later that, right before Dante's freak out; he had quoted Pride and Prejudice.

He.

Had quoted.

Pride and Prejudice.

It seemed the world wasn't as predictable as I thought.

He still hung out with me everyday, shadowed me around, talking every now and then about which teachers he hated and what things he'd rather be doing right now. Dante never talked about doing drugs—I was starting to suspect that it wasn't something he rather be doing at that moment.

We'd occasionally walk back to my apartment, turning Metallica way loud in my room to drown out the sounds of my father screwing some underage hooker in the next room over, stinking of dirty sweat and weed. We'd lie around my room, staring up at the ceiling, quoting dead people that seemed to know what they were talking about.

I'd show Dante my collection of albums and the disarray of books under my bed that I picked up from various Good Wills.

And he'd empty out his backpack filled with used needles, snatches of little empty balloons, empty baggies in various sizes, and different crumpled up eviction notices he said he got tired of seeing laying around his parent's apartment.

Occasionally, we'd hold hands or I'd sit in his lap as he stroked my hair with lazy intimacy. And every now and then he'd kiss my cheek and whisper something in my ear.

"There has to be more to life than this."

Life life life.

But it's hard to live when you're dying on the inside.

Six months after I talked to Dante Sparda for the first time, he showed up on my fire escape at two AM, tapping on my slightly cracked sliding glass door, persistently. "I want…to show you something." I really didn't need further prodding; instead I silent slipped my shoes on, snatched the crumpled bills lying on the table, and followed Dante to wherever he decided to take me.

We ended up hopping on a bus up to Newberry, way up in the hills where the sky was clear with sprinkles of stars and crisp, cool air. It was away from the big cities, away from the commotion of drugs and dead beat parents. Away from whomever we were.

He took me to the highest cliff when it was sprinkling and cold and we looked up at the stars in amazement. I don't think I've ever seen so many colors, where the sky looked dark and endless, here it looked open and free. It wasn't suffocating or bleak. No feelings of desolation arose. It was peace, in every sense of the word.

"I came here, before I met you," Dante whispered, eyes glancing over at the moon for a brief moment. "I came here to kill myself."

My breath hitched momentarily, one of my hands reaching out on its own accord, clutching the one it found. My hand squeezed his, screaming everything I couldn't say out loud. I may have been begging, maybe, because I didn't want him to die, not that way, even if he was already slowly slipping out of my reach.

"I think I might love you," He breathed.

In love in love in love.

But the world is blind and hope falls from my grasp with every breath we take