“I want you to look at the cells. They look pretty much like the pictures in our bio book. See how they’re round or irregularly shaped? They look like blobs all connected together.”
“Okay.”
He slid the microscope back in front of him and switched in the yellowed slide he had prepared a few minutes before. After turning more dials, he scooted the microscope back to her. “Now look at this one.”
Laurel put her forehead back down toward the eyepiece, far more afraid of this slide than the other. She hoped David wouldn’t notice her hands shaking.
“Look at the cells now. They’re all pretty square and very uniform. Plant cells are orderly, not like animal cells. And they have thick cell walls that are square like the ones you see here. That’s not to say you never see squarish animal cells, but they wouldn’t be nearly this uniform, and the cell walls would be much thinner.”
Laurel sat back very slowly. This didn’t make sense at all.
She had an actual plant growing out of her back! A mutant, parasite flower! She was the freak of all freaks, and if anyone ever found out, she’d be poked and prodded for the rest of her life. Her head started to spin and she felt like all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room. Her chest constricted and she couldn’t seem to draw in a big enough breath. “I gotta go,” she mumbled.
“Wait,” David said, holding on to her arm. “Don’t go. Not when you’re all freaked out like this.” He tried to meet her eyes, but she refused to look at him. “I’m really worried about you. Can’t you just tell me?”
She stared into his blue eyes. They were soft and earnest. It wasn’t that she didn’t think he could keep a secret; she was sure he would. She trusted him, she realized. She had to tell someone. Trying to muddle through on her own hadn’t worked. Really hadn’t worked.
Maybe he could understand. What did she have to lose?
She hesitated. “You won’t tell anyone? Ever?”
“Never.”
“Do you swear?”
He nodded solemnly.
“I need to hear you say it, David.”
“I swear.”
“There’s no expiration date on this promise. If I tell you”—her emphasis on the if was unmistakable—“you can’t ever tell anyone. Ever. Not in ten years or twenty or fifty—”
“Laurel, stop! I promise I won’t tell anyone. Not unless you tell me to.”
She stared at him. “It’s not a piece of a flower, David. It’s a piece of me.”
David looked at her for a long time. “What do you mean, it’s a piece of you?”
She’d passed the point of no return. “I got this lump on my back. That’s why I’ve been so weird. I thought I had cancer or a tumor or something. But this morning this…this flower-thing bloomed out of my back. I have a flower growing out of my spine.” She sat back with her arms folded over her chest, daring him to accept her now.
David stared with his mouth slightly open. He stood, hands at his waist, lips pressed together. He turned and walked to his bed and sat down with his elbows on his knees. “I’m going to ask this once, because I have to — but I won’t ever ask again because I’ll believe your answer, okay?”
She nodded.
“Is this a joke, or do you really believe what you just said?”
She shot to her feet and headed toward the door. It had been a mistake to come to him. A huge mistake. But before she could turn the doorknob, David stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“Wait. I said I had to ask once. And I meant it. You swear to me that this isn’t a joke, and I’ll believe you.”
She met his eyes and studied them carefully. What she saw there surprised her. It wasn’t disbelief; it was uncertainty. He just didn’t want to be the victim of a stupid prank. She wanted to prove she wouldn’t do that — not to him.
“I’ll show you,” she said, but it sounded more like a question.
“Okay.” His voice was tentative too.
She turned her back and fiddled with the knot in the scarf. As she released the enormous petals, she pushed her shirt up in the back so they could slowly rise to their normal position.
David gaped, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. “But how — you can’t — they’re — what the hell?”
Laurel gave him a tight-lipped grimace. “Yeah.”
“Can I…can I look closer?” Laurel nodded and David stepped forward hesitantly.
“I won’t bite,” she said, but her tone was humorless.
“I know, it’s just…” His face reddened. “Never mind.” He stepped close behind her and stroked his fingers along the long, smooth surfaces. “Is this okay?” he asked.
Laurel nodded.
David prodded very gently all around the base where her skin melded into the small, green leaves. “There’s not even a seam here. They flow right into your skin. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”
Laurel looked down at the floor, unsure of what to say.
“I can understand why you’ve been a little weird this week.”
“You have no idea,” Laurel said as she sat down on his bed and turned her back to the window so the sun could shine on the petals. The sunlight was strangely comforting.
David stared at her, his eyes full of questions. But he said nothing. He sat across the room from her, his eyes darting from her face to the tips of the petals sticking up over her shoulders, and back again. “Do you…?” But he stopped.
After a minute he stood and paced a few times. “Could it…?” He stopped speaking again and continued pacing.
Laurel rubbed her temples. “Please don’t pace — it drives me nuts.”
David immediately dropped into a chair. “Sorry.” He studied her again. “You know this is impossible, right?”
“Trust me, I’m aware.”
“I just…I know, seeing is believing, but I feel like if I blink a couple of times, I’ll wake up…or my vision will suddenly clear or something.”
“It’s okay,” Laurel said, focusing on her hands in her lap. “I’m still waiting to wake up too.” She reached over her shoulder, grabbed a long petal, and studied it for a few seconds before letting it go. It bounced right back up to float beside her face.
“You’re not going to tie them up again?” David asked.
“They feel better if I leave them loose.”
“They feel better? You can feel them?”
Laurel nodded.
He looked over at the remaining bit she had cut off. “Did that hurt?”
“It stung pretty good.”
“Can you…move them?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Well, if you can feel them, they might be more a part of you than just a…growth. Maybe it’s not really flower petals, maybe they’re more like — well, wings.” He laughed. “Sounds really weird, huh?”
Laurel giggled. “Weirder than the fact that they’re growing out of my back in the first place?”
“You’ve got a point.” He let out a sigh as his eyes drifted back to the petals shimmering in the sun. “So…do you have to water it…them?”
“I don’t know.” Laurel snorted. “Wouldn’t that be nice? Then I’d have an easy way to make it die.”
David muttered something under his breath.
“What?”
David shrugged. “I think it’s pretty, that’s all.”
Laurel glanced over her shoulders at the blue-tinged ruffly edges that spanned out on each side of her. “Do you?”
“Sure. If you went to school like that, I bet half the girls there would be insanely jealous.”
“And the other half would be staring at me like I was a freak of nature. No, thank you.”