Chapter 3
After eating breakfast and taking a bath, Leni texted all of her friends and told them to meet her at Ketchum Park during lunch. While waiting for that time to roll around, she had Lori and Luna help her down the stairs so she could spend time with the rest of her siblings. She sat on the couch and watched a rerun episode of The Dream Boat with the twins, who clung to her like baby marsupials clung to their mother. Seriously, neither of them were ever that cuddly, not even as babies! After a while, Lori joined them in watching TV. During a commercial break, Lori's phone started ringing.
"Aw, crap, it's my boss!" Lori exclaimed when she saw the caller ID. "Hello...yeah, I'm perfectly aware that I'm late for work and didn't notify you...I had a family emergency yesterday." The incomprehensible voice on the other end began to sound more agitated. "No, I'm not coming in today. In fact, I need to take the next few weeks off. And yes, I said weeks," The voice seemed to ask a question in an annoyed tone. "Because my sister is dying, that's why! I need to be there for her and the rest of my family!" Lori replied angrily. The voice on the other end rudely admonished her. "Oh, I see. Well, if that's the way you feel about it, then screw you! I QUIT!" Lori screamed into her phone before hanging up.
"Yikes, sis! What was that all about?" Lana asked. Lori huffed.
"Oh, my boss is mad at me because I never came in to work today. The jerk even had the nerve to refuse my request for time off! Just because I'm his best employee does not mean my job is more important than my own family! I'll tear him limb from limb if I don't get my last paycheck!"
Leni couldn't help but get a warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that she in her final moments was a higher priority than her sister's job. That feeling was soon replaced by anxiety when she realized what time it was. After eating a salad that Lincoln made her for lunch, she had Lori drive her to the park to meet her friends. Luna accompanied them so she could give Lori a hand in helping Leni walk. Fortunately, Leni's friends had chosen to sit at a picnic table that was fairly close to the parking lot. With assurances that Leni would be given a ride home, Lori and Luna left. The group of friends sat staring at each other in silence for a while, none of them knowing how to start the discussion.
"So...Leni. How did things at the hospital go? Did they fix what was wrong with you?" Fiona asked. Leni couldn't find the words for a proper response, so she simply sighed and shook her head.
"No? Are they at least trying to fix it?" asked Jackie. Leni shook her head again, looking sadder by the moment.
"Well? Talk to us, girl!" said Miguel, and Leni broke down sobbing. Jackie and Mandee, who were sitting with Leni between them, wrapped their arms around Leni and rubbed her back while giving the Hispanic teen withering glares.
"There's nothing they can do about it," Leni finally croaked. "I have tumors in my head. I...I'm dying..." This left the others speechless.
"How...how long do you have?" asked Chaz.
"Less than a month. I'm so, so sorry, everyone."
"Leni, you don't have to apologize," Jackie said, tears streaming down her own cheeks. "These things happen without warning sometimes. There was probably no stopping it regardless, if you only found out about it yesterday. Who knows if it could have been prevented or not?"
The group of friends kept talking for the next hour or so, giving solace to themselves and each other. Eventually, the others had to go back to work at their summer jobs, leaving Leni alone with Chaz. The two laid down on a blanket in the grass, watching the fluffy white clouds float by. Neither of them said anything for a long while. Finally, Chaz decided to break the silence with something he'd been wanting to get off his chest for months.
"Leni...there's something I need to tell you..." he began.
"You have a crush on me?" Leni guessed. Chaz sat up to look at her incredulously. "I've known for a while," she admitted. "I never said anything because I wanted you to make the first move. I feel the same way." Chaz sighed and flopped back against the blanket.
"I guess it doesn't matter now, does it? I mean, if we try to start something now, then our relationship will be over before it even began," he moaned. Leni wasn't expecting something like that to come from Chaz of all people, and honestly, it kinda stung. It took a substantial amount of effort on her part, but she was able to crawl on top of Chaz and straddle his waist. The tubby boy just stared bewildered at the girl frowning down at him.
"Chaz, I want you to love me, because I love you. I heard my sister Lucy say one time that it's better to love and lose than to not love at all. Do you want to be my boyfriend or not?" she asked.
"Yes. With all my heart," he replied honestly.
"Then kiss me, you dope!" Leni bent down and Chaz leaned forward, and their lips met in the middle. While they made out, Chaz's arms snaked around Leni's waist and hugged her closer to him. They parted for air, but got right back into it after a few deep breaths each. When they finally stopped, Leni laid down on top of Chaz, resting her head on his chest, just over his heart. It was there that she fell asleep to the sensation of Chaz gently rubbing her back.
...
After a refreshing twenty-minute nap, Leni was helped to her feet by Chaz, who was surprisingly strong for someone so chunky. With an arm around her waist for support, he half-carried her as they walked over to where his vehicle, a battered 1994 Dodge Dakota pickup, was parked.
"I know it's not much, but it was either buy this one from my great-grandmother, or buy one of those dinky little 'Smart Cars' that I probably won't even fit in," Chaz apologized.
"No, no, it's fine. My sister Lana says Dakotas are pretty reliable if they're well-maintained," Leni said. She then heard a sound like heavy wind blowing, but the air was completely still. They were at least fifty feet from Chaz's truck. "Hey, do you hear that?" she asked, and they both looked up. Barreling straight toward them through the atmosphere was a flaming potato-shaped chunk of rock the size of a car.
With a yelp, Chaz shifted his grip on Leni and started to power-walk. Leni figured out that she was dead weight, too heavy for Chaz to break into a full run. With her limited brain power, she made a decision that would save at least one of them from the meteor's impact.
"Chaz, stop!" she yelled, and the boy came to a halt. Placing her hands on his chest, she said, "We can't survive that thing at the pace we're going. I'm sorry. I love you." With tears in her eyes, Leni summoned every single ounce of her strength and shoved Chaz toward his truck as hard as she could, falling to the ground in the process. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the impact.
The meteor struck the ground twenty feet behind her, and the last thing she felt before unconsciousness claimed her was a sensation of flight.
...
Having been so unceremoniously deposited on a foreign planet, a large blob of viscous yellow liquid crawled out of the smoldering crater and oozed along the ground in search of a new vessel, preferably one that wasn't on fire and hurtling through space at hundreds of miles an hour.
This extraterrestrial amorphous slime was sentient, female, and required a host organism for survival outside her native atmosphere. Her heightened sensory system, even without distinguishable eyes, could clearly sense two life-forms, both presumably knocked unconscious by her meteor's impact with the ground. The closer of the two, a female like herself, was barely clinging to life but would have to do.
The slime oozed along the ground and over to the female life-form. Grateful that its peculiar outer membrane had been burned away, leaving its somewhat scorched skin and flesh exposed, the slime crawled onto its bare torso and began seeping into its pores. Thus, the two organisms formed a bond on the cellular level that would only be broken if the slime allowed it.
Fun fact: MY first car was a 1994 Dodge Dakota, and I bought it from my own great-grandmother. It ran beautifully for over a year before I wrecked it through no fault of my own.
