He was lying in bed under a single sheet—he hated blankets, even in winter, so at some point during the night he’d kicked the bedspread off. But he’d fallen asleep with his curtains open, and now the clear morning light filled his room like a liquid, cleansing and clarifying every surface. It was Saturday, he realized. No school. He looked around. He couldn’t get over how different everything looked, how the world almost glowed. It was like he’d woken up in a commercial for laundry detergent. He started laughing. He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t just the darkness that the daylight had washed away; it was everything—the gloom, the anxiety, the fear. This morning, he actually felt giddy. He couldn’t remember feeling this good in weeks. Oh, he remembered feeling lousy in the days before, and he remembered why: his premonitions of disaster. His last premonition had been the one in the swimming pool, where he’d imagined he would be hit by a van. That had been one situation he could definitely not avoid; after all, it’s not like he could never get into a car again.
