A hundred big ones left.

This was way more than some strange manifestation of puberty. Mood swings, disfiguring acne, even periods that went on for months were at least seminormal. But growing oversized flower petals out of your back from a zit the size of a softball? This was something else entirely.

But what? This was the kind of stuff you saw in cheap horror movies. Even if she did decide to tell someone, who would believe her? Never, even in her worst nightmares, had she imagined something like this could happen to her.

This was going to ruin everything. Her life, her future. It was like everything was washed away in an instant.

The bathroom suddenly felt too warm. Too small, too dark, too…too everything.

Desperate to get away from the house, Laurel scooted through the kitchen, grabbed a can of soda, and opened the back door.

“Going for a walk?”

“Yeah, Mom,” she said without turning around.

“Have fun.”

Laurel made a noncommittal sound under her breath.

She stomped down the path toward the woods, paying no attention to the dewspeckled greenery around her. There was still a touch of fog on the western horizon where it rolled off the ocean, but the peak of the sky was blue and clear and the sun was making its way steadily to the top of the sky. It would indeed be a beautiful day. Figures. She felt like Mother Nature was mocking her. Her life was unraveling, yet everything around her was beautiful, as if to spite her.

She ducked behind a large cluster of trees, out of sight of both the road and her house; it wasn’t enough, though. She kept going.

After a few more minutes, she stopped and listened for the sound of anyone—or anything—around her. Once she felt safe, she pushed the back of her shirt up and untied the confining scarf. A sigh escaped her lips as the petals whipped back into their original position on her back. It felt like being released from a tiny, cramped box.

A beam of sunlight shone down from a break in the trees above, making her silhouette stretch out on the grass in front of her. The outline of her shadow looked like an enormous butterfly with gauzy wings. And in the same strange way balloons cast shadows, the blackness had just a tinge of blue in it. She tried to make the wing-things move, but although she could feel them—feel every inch of them now, soaking in the rays of sunlight—she had no control over them. Something so life-shattering shouldn’t be this beautiful.

She stared at the image on the ground for a long time, wondering what to do.

Should she tell her parents? She had promised herself she’d tell them Monday if the bump wasn’t gone.

Well, it was gone.

Pulling one of the long strips over her shoulder, Laurel ran her fingers down it. It was so soft. And it didn’t hurt. Maybe it will just go away, she thought optimistically. That was what her mom always said. Eventually most things go away on their own. Maybe…maybe it would be okay.

Okay? The word seemed to fill her head, reverberating in her skull. I have a humongous flower growing out of my spine. How is this supposed to be okay!

As her emotions tumbled around like a hurricane, her thoughts suddenly centered on David. Maybe David could help her make sense of this. There had to be a scientific explanation. He had a microscope—a really good one, from what he said. Maybe he could look at a piece of this weird flower. He might be able to tell her what it was. And even if he told her he had no idea, she’d be no worse off than she was now.

She wrapped her scarf around the flower again and hurried into the house, almost running into her dad as he lumbered into the kitchen.

“Dad!” she said in surprise. Her nerves—already at the breaking point—stretched farther.

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Morning, beautiful.” He laid an arm across her shoulders, and Laurel sucked in a nervous breath and hoped he couldn’t feel the petals through her shirt.

But then, her father rarely noticed anything before his second cup of coffee.

“Why are you up?” she asked, a slight quaver in her voice.

He groaned. “I have to go open the store. Maddie needed the day off.”

“Sure,” Laurel said absently, trying not to see this change in the normal routine as some kind of bad omen.

He started to pull his arm away, then stopped and sniffed the air by her shoulder. Laurel froze. “You smell nice. You should wear that perfume more often.”

Laurel nodded, praying her eyes weren’t popping out of her head, and unwound herself from her dad’s embrace. She hurried to pick up the cordless phone and then headed up the stairs.

In her room, she stared at the phone for a long time before her fingers managed to dial David’s number. He picked up after the first ring. “Hello?”

“Hey,” she said quickly, forcing herself not to hang up.

“Laurel. Hey! What’s up?”

The seconds stretched into silence.

“Laurel?”

“Yeah?”

“You did call me.”

More silence.

“Can I come over?” she blurted.

“Um, sure. When?”

“Right now?”

Chapter 6

A FEW MINUTES LATER, LAUREL HAD HER CHAIR WEDGED under the doorknob again. She lifted the front of her shirt and pulled the end of one of the long white-and-blue strips free from the pink scarf. It looked so harmless, sitting there in her hand. She could almost forget it was attached to her back. She picked up her mother’s nail scissors and studied the end of the petal. She probably didn’t need too big of a piece. She eyed it again and selected a small curve at the ruffled tip.