In his hospital room, it was quiet. The sheets on his bed were white and blue and folded neatly over his legs and lap like he had been still the whole time. The white light wasn't as crisp and cold as it usually felt. Somewhere in the serene quiet of his hospital room came a familiar woman's voice.

"Amare?"

She was sitting there in a simple jersey shirt dress. It was blue, v-neck and looked comfortable. She had platform summer shoes on and dangling earrings made of gold. Her necklace was delicate and simple, its small centerpiece a little birds nest with a pearl buried in it. By the look of her, she was about the same age as Amare. When he opened his eyes she reached over and touched his wrist, "Hello, my handsome boy."

Amare's eyebrows lowered and he found it almost impossible to sit up, "Mom? What are you doing here?"

"I love you, honey, I came to see you." Her smile started to fade when she added, "I've been worried about you."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Why would you say that?" She withdrew her hand from his wrist when he stung her with the statement.

"Because... you've been dead mom, a long time. And whatever medicine they have me on must be fantastic if I think that I'm seeing you now."

"It's not the medicine, sweetie. You're just dying a little bit right now."

"What?" Amare's eyes opened up fully and even though it felt like a heavy weight was on his chest, he was able to sit up by pushing his hands against the mattress by his hips and pulling himself to a sitting position, "I can't be dying." Then, as if to add evidence to the way he felt, "Dirk changed me. I can't... be dying."

"I said just a little bit." She reached over to pet him on the shoulder and scooted her chair closer, "You always were such a willful boy. You never let me rest with the trouble you got into. Always had to poke, always had to press buttons."

"Is that why you're worried about me? I don't hear you mentioning dad or anything about that."

She shook her head and that seemed to roll the poison off the words he spoke. There was a momentary glance at the door before she looked back at him, "I didn't know about your father until it was too late. That... never would have happened. I should have known when you started acting out. When you started picking on the other kids at school. I just thought you were going through a rebellious phase. You never told me something was wrong or what happened."

"Not my fault you're a fucking idiot."

"Don't talk to me like that, I'm your mother." She warned him and the way she narrowed her eyes at him brought back the maternal power she had over him.

His sigh was resigned and he leaned his head back against the pillow, "I'm fine, hallucination-mom, go back to the nothing you came from."

"You're not fine." She pointed at him when he said that, "You can't lie to ME Amare. You have been getting more and more out of control. I thought when your father died that things would get better for you. That you would be happier. But things just kept getting worse and worse. Your drinking got worse, your drugs, promiscuity... everything just got magnified," she reached over to stroke the side of his face, "What's eating you up, baby?"

"I.... I don't know. I thought when that asshole died I'd feel better but I didn't. That pissed me off."

"Revenge isn't all it's cracked up to be, is it?" She gave a knowing smile and dropped her hand from his face down to his hand, to hold it and lace her fingers with his, "But he can't hurt anyone else anymore, can he? That's a good thing. You did a good thing."

Amare stared at her and slowly shook his head no, "How can you say that about me? Seeing what I say and do. If you were my mom, if you were real and you knew, I'd be a monster."

She insisted he was wrong by shaking her head and wrapping both her hands around the one of his that she had, "You're not perfect, you've got a terrible temper. Did you know I use to train dogs when I was younger, after school? The meanest dogs were always mean because they were insecure or afraid. It was never because they were just mean. I think you're like that, sweetie. I think you're afraid."

"You should have been a lawyer," he managed to smile then and let himself play along with the dream, or hallucination, that he was having. It was somehow comforting to talk to his mother again.

"It's true!" She laughed when his smile appeared for the first time and squeezed his hand, "I died when you were young, too young and then your father... he wasn't much help either. Honey, I would have died to protect you from what had happened to you. I never wanted that for you."

"You would have died for me?"

"Of course, I'm your mother. I love you, Amare, even when you are being wretched."

"I just... I don't want to die."

She gave a sympathetic smile to him and sighed, "Baby, no one wants to die."

"That's not true. People talk about the things that they would die for all the time. Dirk said if you love someone enough you would die for them."

"That's true-- I would have died for you if it meant saving you from what you went through. What's wrong?"

"I just," Amare shrugged his shoulders, wiggling his toes under the sheets in thought, "I just don't think that I would die for anything."

"Oh, that's not true. You would have died for me, you said so yourself many times. What was it you asked for? That it could be you and not me? Doesn't ever...work that way, though."

"Yea, but," Amare smirked when he looked at her, "Doesn't work that way. I can't die for someone who is already dead. I'm...alone."

"Why would you say that?"

Amare blinked when he looked at her. When was the last time he had seen her? He wasn't even a teenager but a young boy. He could remember that she always wore citrus perfume and that her brown hair was constantly tied up in a ponytail. Said that kids yanked on her hair too much when she had it down, "You and dad are gone, that's it?"

"What about Dirk?" Her hands moved in the air as if mimicking an offer, "He's blood now, isn't he? He's more than just a lover to you, he's the only family you have."

"Family?"

"Yes, you treat him like family," she laughed and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling as if recalling memories that they had shared together, "He's been through your tantrums, your pouting, your blinding spirit and even your arresting affection. He's gone through the gambit, just like me. Out of all of your boyfriends and girlfriends have you ever been as close to them?"

"Yea, but that's accidental. He took me to his place, he had me be there with him."

"Oh? Is this coming from the same boy who got so upset with me for going on a trip that you let the air out of my tires the night before? You have always found a way to get what you want. If you had really wanted to leave Dirk, you could have. You just don't know how to ask someone to stay. You hide their shoes or you call and cancel plans that they had made. You can be quite the little monster."

"I just... I don't want to hear no."

She smiled and kissed his cheek, "No one, does, baby, but you've got to try to believe people will say yes. You started breaking things in Dirk's kitchen because you wanted him to throw you out. You keep thinking that people are going to hurt you but you act so terribly that it comes true and then you think that you were right all along. You should try believing that it won't be bad if you just let things happen and be alone. No letting air out of the tires when you want someone to stay. Maybe they will just stay, anyway."

"I just... get uncomfortable."

"I know, sweetie. I know. I love you, baby. But you need to wake up now."

"Wake up?"

"Yes," She smiled and kissed his cheek again. A wave of citrus hit his nose when she leaned in, "He's waiting for you to wake up."