91 Petals

Chapter 4

Eighty-fourth petal—eighty-sixth petal

Days passed and every day I went after school to visit Rachel.  Her hair started to fall out until she was completely bald.  Petal, after petal, after petal fell to the ground beside my little flower until there will only seven petals left. 

                “It’s spread to my lungs,” Rachel said.  Her voice had gone raspy and she was constantly coughing.  “They say,” she said holding up the book, “I have seven days left.”  Seven petals, seven days.  Seven days, seven nights, seven little tiny petals.  I shook my head not wanting to believe it. 

                “No, you said it yourself, you’re a fighter.  Fighter’s never predict their own death,” I muttered. 

                “What about that man, the one that fought against segregation in the United States?  Martin Luther King I think.  Right?  He was a fighter.  Well, in the sense he was a fighter.  He predicted his own death on live television,” Rachel pointed out.

                I sighed.  She was right.  He had. 

                “No, you won’t die,” I said.  Rachel had become one of the best friends I could ask for in the last 84 days. 

                “Maybe it isn’t true, maybe I have eight days or nine.  But Max, I don’t think I’ll make it to Christmas—”

                “No!  Shut up!  You aren’t going to die! Shut up shut up shut up!” I hissed.  I jumped up. I was starting to cry now. 

                “Max,” Rachel said.  I took a deep breath and tried in vain to suck the tears back into my stupid, ugly face. 

                “You won’t die,” I muttered.  “You can’t.  You and your sister.  You guys are like my best friends.  I can’t only have one best friend,” I protested.  Rachel just watched me. 

                I ran home that night in the snow.  It was supposed to snow hard again tonight.  By now the Empire State building had Christmas lights shining from the top levels and the streets of New York City were ablaze with color.  My mom had put a light-up snowman on our front step.  It smiled stupidly up at me as I walked towards the door. I had an impulse to kick it but just nudged it with my foot. 

                When I came in I didn’t say anything.  I just went to my room and shut the door behind me.  Tears started to well up in my eyes again as I collapsed on my bed.  I stared at the ceiling fan hanging from the ceiling in my room.  I rolled off the edge of the bed and knelt beside the bed.

                I’ve never been a very religious person.  I go to church every now and then but I’ve never really thought too hard about whether or not I believe in God.  Sometimes I hear some weirdoes give sermons on the street about Jesus and how he’s God’s son and all.  But then I hear that we are all God’s children too.  To me it always seemed like God favors this Jesus (or Christ or Messiah or whoever he is) and I start to think that God is just some idea we’ve all formulated in our head of some head honcho that rules the world. 

                Sometimes I believe in God.  I believe in him on those days when good things happen to my mom or I see some guy on TV with a million bucks thanking God for his money.  And that belief goes away when I look at the homeless guy who practically lives on the curb across the street.  If God so loves the world, why in the hell does he make a lot of them homeless, friendless, smelly losers that are forced to live on the street and mug people.   If God is so against killing why does he let it happen?