I had to ask once. And I meant it. You swear to me 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.
“OK.” 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 humourless.
“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 OK?” 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 OK,” 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 shoulder.
“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 a lot.”
“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 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 them…it?”
“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.”
“So what are you going to do?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I can do. Nothing, I guess.” She laughed humourlessly. “Wait for it to take over my body and kill me?”
“Maybe it will go away.”
“Right, that’s what I kept telling myself about the bump.”
David hesitated. “Have you…told your parents?”
Laurel shook her head.
“Are you going to?”
She shook her head again.
“I think you should.”
Laurel swallowed hard. “I’ve been thinking about that since I woke up.” She turned to look at him. “If you were a parent and your kid told you she had a giant flower growing out of her back, what would you do?”
David started to say something, then looked down at the ground.
“You would do the responsible thing. You’d take her to the hospital; she’d get poked and prodded and become a medical freak. That’s what would happen to me. I don’t want to be that kid, David.”
“Maybe your mom could make something to help,” David suggested half-heartedly.
“We both know this is way bigger than anything my mom could fix.” Laurel clasped her fingers in front of her. “Honestly, if this thing is going to kill me, I’d rather it did it in private. And if it goes away,” she said with a shrug, spreading her hands out in front of her, “then it’s better that no one else knew.”
“OK,” David finally said. “But I think you need to reconsider if anything else happens.”
“What else could happen?” Laurel asked.
“It could get bigger. Or spread.”
“Spread?” She hadn’t considered
