One Thousand Daisies

Chapter One

Imagine a petal, perhaps the petal of a daisy, now imagine the fragility and daintiness of this petal, how even the tiniest nick with your nail will leave an irreversible mark which will last until that petal dies, whether you can see the mark or not there's always one there. Always. What's your petal? I know mine, but I'll let you figure that out for yourself.

Chapter One

I find myself nodding off as I'm brought back to reality by my sister gripping my hand tighter while she sleeps. I gently kiss her forehead and sigh as I look at her. It isn't right. She's covered in tubes and wires and her skin is the colour of chalk. She should be living the life of a normal eleven

year old, not having poison flow through her veins in a hospital room that remains for boring despite the effort to lighten it up with the various paintings of cartoon characters on the walls and the hedgehogs (or porcupines) on the blue curtains. The whole hospital just has an evident atmosphere of melancholy. No place for a little girl to be.

The nurse bursts in, waking up my mother. 'Sally' has a smile plastered across her face as she changed my sister's IV, but I don't buy it. Sally doesn't care about my sister, she cares about making herself feel good, like she's helped somebody, perhaps it makes her sleep better at night but she doesn't care about my sister individually, she just sees her as a soon to be addition to the thousands of childhood cancer death statistics. Maybe it's a little harsh to just single out Sally, but Sally represents something much bigger than a nurse, she represents so much more, to me anyway, the fact that people's intentions are very rarely what they seem.

Gently, I prise my hand away from Hope's frail hand and stretch out my arms "Go to the cafe down the hall, you've been by her side all day." my mom says softly.

Shaking my head I look down at Hope and then back up to my mom "I'm not hungry." I lie.

She tilts her head to the side, she knows me too well "Cleopa-"

I cut her off "Don't say it." I say a little to sternly.

She smirks "I'm very sorry, Cleo, I'm telling you that you need to go an eat." she instructs and hands me ten dollars "Hope will be fine, okay?"

"I know she will." I say under my breath as I go down the hall, more to myself than my mom. I need to tell myself that she will, I need to believe that this round of chemo is going to work and I'll have my little sister back, or get to keep her as she is at the very least.

The cafe on the ward is small and is usually full to the brim, so I was lucky to get a table to myself in the corner of the room. I buy myself a chicken sandwich and a muffin along with a bottle of water before I settle down at my lucky table. I pull my book from my purse and I'm instantly oblivious to everything else as I turn each page. I hear a voice, forcing me to look up from my book "Please can I sit here?" a tall, dark haired boy who looks around my age asks and I nod politely, before looking back down at my book.

At this point I'm not actually reading anything, just trying not to make eye contact with this boy because I know that I'll embarrass myself when my face turns an inhuman shade of crimson. He was super hot. Like really hot. Or at least that's what he seemed like at a quick glance, I was too scared to look in case he was actually painfully ugly and all my dreams were crushed - slight over exaggeration, but nonetheless I refused to look up.

After a few minutes I hear him speak "You don't even know me and you're ignoring me?" he says in a playful tone.

I close my book and actually look up, nope, still hot "I don't know wh-"

"You've been on the same page for the past five minutes." he laughs.

Oh, he's one of those "Oh right." I mutter sheepishly.