(This is my entry for Weekly Wattpad Contests #57 TimberWoolf Contests)

It was sudden, but most of the time everything was sudden. Life is a series of sudden, unexpected events which happens in a not so particular order. That is the way I always saw life even as the cancer came.

It was 1 am, I couldn't sleep. The IV tube connected to my hand was doing its work or trying to do at least, the chemo was struggling to keep up with the cancer.

The pain was numbed down by painkillers but it was still there, just like the cancer that was running through my veins. Leukemia sucks a ton.

It was rainy outside. I could hear the pitter- patter of the rain and it gradually started raining heavily and then came thunder and lightning. The winds were raging, the rain was piercing and the thunder was frightening. Then came a huge crash.

I pushed the covers away from myself and with quite some difficulty, got to my feet, taking the portable stand on which the liquid packet rested with me.

I pushed the blinds away from my glass panel window and peered outside.

The giant oak tree which used to be in the park in front of our house was now lying down on the ground. It looked miserable and defeated with its branches spread out and covering a large area of the ground, like a giant who had been slain.

Then came a faint "Meow".

I squinted and I could make out a yellow, fluffy figure stuck beneath the tree. Crap, a cat was stuck beneath the tree. I looked down at my IV tube and cursed cancer for the millionth time, I could never make it there. I hung my head down in dismay, looking at the kitty with pity.

Then, like a light in the darkness I saw a miracle happen. The door to  the house next door to ours opened and a boy about my age came running out. I couldn't make out  his features in the dark and I hadn't seen him much as he moved here five days ago.

He ran towards the park ignoring the tide of rain acting like a anchor and making his clothes sag down. He seemed unfazed as it reached his eyes and just continued. 

When he reached the tree, he was panting. I couldn't hear him but he mumbled something to the cat.
Then, he tried to lift the tree and as expected failed.

Then, he took a different approach. He didn't try to lift the tree but to shift it which worked. The cat was free and it licked his shoe.

I smiled, looking at them. He took the cat in his arms and petted it.
The cat then went away on its way.

The boy made his way back and I wanted to hide behind the blinds but he saw me before I could draw them and gave me a crooked smile. To my surprise, I smiled back at him.

********************************

Finneas Rockshow is his name. Today, he came to our house. The doorbell rand around 2pm. I was binge watching anything I could find on the TV with my mom when the door bell disturbed us.

"I'll get it" Mom said, and went to get the door. I kept my eyes glued to the screen.

Then, I heard a soothing, unfamiliar, deep voice. "These are for you Mrs. Brook" He said.

Curious, I got up and slowly walked to the lobby of the front door. I peeked from a corner and saw him.

Now, I could see him. He had black hair perched on his head like curls. His blue eyes were currently looking at my mom and it seemed as if even his eyes smiled. His lips were caressed in his crooked smile. In his hands was a tray of cookies.

"Thank u, Finneas. Give Mrs. Rockshow our best" Mom said, taking the cookies. Then, Finneas' eyes landed on me and his lips curved into a even bigger smile.

"Hello, Eden" He said, no doubt he learned my name from my Mom.
Sheepishly, I emerged from the corner and replied "Hey, Finn".

"Finneas, most people call me Finneas. I don't really like Finn, I was Finn when I was 10. A gross, teenager, very unhygenic" He said.

I laughed. "Okay then, Neas" I said, cheekily. But he seemed to like it as his face brightened. 

"Now that I can live with" He said, flashing me his crooked grin.

"Finneas, why don't you stay for some time? Get to know Eden and eveything.  You are new so you might not know a lot of people here besides Eden needs to get a social life" My mom said, I rolled my eyes.

I didn't need a social life because I wasn't gonna have a life in a week or so. The chemo want working, nothing was working.  But my mom was hopeful, strong and hopefully unlike my Dad who left us the first chance he got. She fought and for her sake I tried to fight too.

"It will be my pleasure, Miss Brook" He said.

"You can show him your room, Eden but better not get to any funny stuff, I am right here" She said, laughing.

"Mom!" I protested and she just laughed and moved to the living room.

Finneas followed me to my bedroom. It was mostly covered with words, yes poem. I wrote a lot of poem but my best one was written on a giant chart paper, right in the center of the wall. So obviously, he started reading it and it went:

Life:
Little hands, little feet,
A curious gaze, and a strong belief
In the beauty and wonder of the world
An observer to the universe

Learnt to walk,
Learnt to talk.
Learnt to read and write,
Learnt that in this world you gotta fight to survive.

School was fine at first,
But then the kids became mean and it felt like the worst.
But I learnt it long ago,
That all things good come and go.

I wish that was where this poem, this life didn't end,
I wish that it was where it begun.
But it's not much choice,
It's never been mine to choose.
I have given up pretending that this could last long,
It would be fleeting like a song bird's song,
But in the seventeen years I have walked this earth,
I wish I gave some love and happiness to the world in return.

That was where it ended, on a hopeful note but I wasn't feeling very hopeful lately. But the black-haired boy next to me smiled and asked "Why Eden?".

"Excuse me?" I asked, not quite getting what he was asking.  "I meant why did they name you Eden, it's a rare name. Why not Sandra or Samantha or Tiara?" He rephrased his question.

"It's not that complex of a story really. My mother wanted me to represent something beautiful, to bring beauty in people's life so she named me Eden, after the Garden of Eden. According to her I was full of flowers and beauty and whatnot but most of my life I have felt like a single wilted flower, a single wilted flower which is not beautiful and incapable of making others life beautiful" I said with a sigh.

He was still smiling, looking at me and smiling.

"You're wrong, Eden. Wilted flowers are beautiful too. Haven't you ever placed a flower inside a book and then opened it to find it again, wasn't the flower still beautiful?" He said and I didn't reply, I didn't know what to say. I just looked into his eyes.

"I have a week or so to live, Neas. Don't bothering hanging around with me, it will only cause you pain" I said, with a sigh.

He was still smiling, "Well, that's the kind of pain I am willing to live with".

********************************
Monday.

Finneas was a bright ray of Hope.  You could tell it from the stupid smirk that never left his face and the way he looked at everything like he was fascinated.

He took me to the park today, I walked quite slowly but he was patient and I was grateful for that. 

He took me to the flower garden, just like I expected him to.

We sat down on a bench by the stream which the park was built around, the flowers were right in front of us.

"Look at that one" he said, pointing at a tiny little red poppy growing right next to the bench.

I looked at the tiny, little beauty and smiled.

"I have been coming here every afternoon since I came into this town and watched that little dude grow. She was just a bud then but today she bloomed" He said, looking at the flower with motherly love.

I smiled, I think I was falling for a boy who thought wilted flowers were beautiful. I was falling for him when I didn't have time to turn this love into something else but still I was smiling.

********************************
Tuesday.

We went to the graveyard today. There was no particular reason for this, just that I felt like it.

The sky was cloudy but it wasn't raining. The bright green grass that covered the graveyard blended well with the grey of the headstones.

"There was this graveyard back in Indiana, it was nearer to my house than the part do I used to go there a lot. I remember searching the graves for interesting epitaphs and there's this one I remember "She was a storm in life, a storm that did not destroy but made lives on a scale only a storm could. And in death she is a Hurricane" And that just reminds me of you" he said and I was speechless.

"It would be a privilege to be remembered like that" I said, when I finally found my voice and he grinned.

We ended up walking to the chain link fence that separated the land of the Dead from the land of the living, the fence was stuffed with candy wrappers which were probably caught in the wind and got stuck in it.

It was quite a contrast, the brightly coloured candy wrappers to the grey gravestones behind us.

"This is the fence that separates the two worlds, you see the joy and love of these candy wrappers in this fence they are fighting against this iron fence. All it takes is permission for them to make this grey and morbid world colorful and joyful as well. Remember that Eden, no matter how hard people try they won't be successful unless you let them in" He said, taking a candy wrapper out from the fence.

I was sure that I was letting him in. 
********************************

Wednesday.

I was waiting for him and sure enough he showed up with that crooked grin still on his face. 

"What shall we do today then?" He asked, our options were fairly limited because of my poor health but we ignored that fact.

"Nothing and everything" I replied, with a smile.

In the end, we lay on the floor, side by side with my leg touching his and staring at the fluorescent stars on my ceiling.

"When I was in better shape, I taped those stars to the ceiling in the shape of many constellations, so I could always sleep under the night sky even though I might actually never be able to do it" I said, looking at the green shining shapes.

"I can see quite a few" He said, pointing at Ursa Major.
Then, he got to his feet. "Do you have extra stars?" He asked, I nodded and pointed towards the box I kept them in.

I looked at him curiously and he shuffled around with the stars and using a stool reached my ceiling. He started making a masterpiece and I couldn't quite decipher what it was until he was done.

It was me, he make a semi-portrait, semi-silhoutte of me from the stars.

"You don't need to sleep under the night sky now, you are in the night sky. You aren't a single star, Eden. You are countless stars spread across the cosmos and even their beauty couldn't begin to represent the beauty you have" He said, with such a sincere face that I didn't laugh, only smiled.

It occurred to me that this boy was making me smile more than I ever had since Cancer in just a week.

********************************

Thursday.

I woke up with a slight headache but I brushed it off as Finneas came into my room.

"I can see that you're a little bit out of it today so we will just go your backyard then" he said and together we walked to the backyard my mom kept well-maintained.

We sat down side by side on the grass and looked at two birds flying in the sky. 

"You know I have always wanted to fly, not like in a plane or something. Just like that" He said, pointing at the bird. It was a childish thought but it didn't seem childish then.

"At first it was because I wanted to get away from my home. My parents divorced there was this invisible barrier around Me and Dad I wanted to get away" He said, his voice thin and quiet.

I could tell the perfect boy next to me wasn't perfect after all, he was broken just like me.

I held his hand in mine and squeezed.

"But now it's just to explore, to get to know something beyond myself. Ever since I met you though, it feels like I already know something beyond myself. I know you" he said, turning to me and I wished that I could fly with him.

We spent that day reading my poem, laughing, talking about him, talking about me and listening  to Radiant Warmth by Mika Ratsula on repeat.

It was his favorite song, he said it reminded him of me.

Even as he left my house, the headphones we had shared listening to the song were dangling from his pocket.

********************************

Friday.

The pain was worse today.  My sides hurt, I couldn't get up so Finneas just laid down on my bed next to me.

I flinched as the pain got worse, he placed his hand in mine.

"Tell me about the one thing you've wanted in life, one thing you've always wanted to do, always wanted to have" He said, looking at me.

I bit my lip in contemplation.

"I have always wanted to matter but I can't do that if I can't even get out of bed" I replied.

"How people do you want to matter to?" He asked, biting his lip.

"As many as I can" I said.

"Even if it's two people, will it be enough knowing that you mattered more to them than you would have to a thousand others?" He asked.

"It is" I said, after a short silence.

"I believe you have already fulfilled that dream then" he said, his eyes twinkling.

I fell asleep next to him that night and when I woke up I could hear his deep breaths, knowing he was sleeping as well.

********************************

We woke up to the sound of wind rustling through the curtains.

I looked up at him to see him smiling at me. I could tell I didn't have much time.

The pain was taking over my body inch by inch and I didn't wanna go, I didn't but I had to.

"Neas, the time is coming" I said, smiling but this time he wasn't smiling. He looked heartbroken.

After realising what he was doing, he gave me a sad smile.

"I don't want it to end. I don't know whether a person can fall in love in one week but I have fallen in love with you" he said, holding my hand.

"I have fallen in love with you as well but we had a deal, one week is all I have" I said, as a single tear fell from my eyes.

He wiped the tear away and gave me a smile "Let's spend this day together then, just you and me".

We didn't do much, just lay down next to each other still listening to Radiant Warmth.

We didn't really need to do anything or to say anything, everything that was needed to he said was already said.

********************************

The pain became too much to bear on Saturday night. On Saturday night, Finneas carried me to the hospital with my mother at his side.

My mother was crying and he was trying to smile for my sake but I could tell he was crying when he thought I wasn't looking.

The emergency room was when I passed out.

As promised I did wake up to daylight on Saturday. I couldn't seem him as no visitors were allowed.

The pain was drowned out by the morphine. In that empty white room, my last thought was that I knew I mattered to him and to my mom and that had been enough after all. Seventeen years had been enough, one week had been enough. It had been enough to fall in love with Finneas Rockshow and to leave him forever but it was enough.

The king of Crooked Smiles,
A soaring bird in mid-flight. 
The Prince of metaphorical resonance,
He is a blessing.
The lover of Wilted Flowers,
The savior of cats in rain showers.
Who gave meaning to my life,
In a week, he gave me a lifetime.