Chapter 4 - 100 Things

“So I’m going to die in two months.”

I look up from my notebook to see Mike grimly set his mouth in a straight line. I’m drawing infinity symbols again, something I do from time to time. I have an obsession with infinity. I love the idea of forever, and how infinity just stretches on and on and on.

Mike doesn’t get it. He doesn’t believe in forever or eternity or infinity. He thinks everything has an expiration date.

He’s so morbid sometimes. But I like Mike, and I like his personality, regardless.

There’s a lot of things I like about him. I made a list of all the things I like about him in my diary. There’s about 100 things.

I tell everyone my diary is a journal. When I told Mike that, he said,

Girls have diaries. Boy have journals.

He started keeping a journal after he saw that I keep one too. Probably to list out all his memories before he dies.
When he’s 100 years old.

“You’re not going to die. I prayed for you.”

Mike rolls his eyes. Clutching his hands in mock prayer, he says,

“Not this again, Sam. There’s no point in praying, God isn’t going to listen to us, we’re just kids.”

I frown at him. Always the cynic, Mike.

Taking my Holy Bible out from my backpack, I set it on the table in front of us. I’m going to show Mike the power of prayer, right now.

“I’m going to pray for you, Mikey!”

I call Mike Mikey sometimes, because it’s cuter and we’re kids. He doesn’t like it, he prefers Mike and glares at me whenever I call him by his nickname, which he is doing right now.

I wonder if he would prefer it if I called him Michael.

I should use Mike’s real name in prayer though, on the infinitesimal chance that God gets confused who Mikey is.

No chance though. God knows everything, he is all knowing and all powerful. He wouldn’t get confused.

I close my eyes, clutch my hands together and start. Mike falls silent, and I can feel his eyes on me, watching.

“Lord in Heaven, you are our provider and our protector. You bring us hope and joy and peace. You are goodness and graciousness, compassionate and caring, and you loved us first. We love because you first loved us. I lift up Michael John Kent to you. I pray for his upcoming surgery, that it will be go smoothly and he will be safe. I pray for his healing, that you will heal him. God of all comfort, comfort him in his period of pain and sorrow, and heal his hurts. Heal his heart from its wounds, and grant him whole health. I pray for his recovery from his sickness and that he will remain in joy in your infinite embrace. In your infinite wisdom, we seek your guidance and blessings over our lives. Guide us to a place of understanding where we remember to put all our faith in you and your promises. For we know that the plans you have for us are to prosper us and give us hope for a better future. Would you give Mike the future he so deserves? Thank you God for all your blessings. In Jesus name, amen.”

I open my eyes, feeling a bit teary.

Praying does that to me. Whenever I pray, I am reminded of how powerful and moving God is. He is the most powerful God of all the heavens and the earth.  

Mike’s eyes are glistening too, moved. He never cries, unlike me who cries all the time, but he’s in a time of his life where he needs all the support he can get. From me, from his family, and from God.

I know God is going to save Mike. Mike’s too good to die.

Mike’s dad is Catholic, but his mom isn’t Christian. Mike was baptized when he was a baby in a Catholic church due to his dad’s insistence, but he’s a skeptic.

I know he secretly believes in God even though he pretends not to. And he secretly loves God so much he cries himself to sleep talking to God.

And I’m not even being sarcastic. Because I do that too.

“God isn’t going to listen to your stupid prayer, Sam.”

He sniffs a bit, wiping his nose with his finger.

“Allergies.”

Excuses. It’s fall, dimwit, pollen doesn’t exist in this time of the year.

But I don’t say that aloud. It sounds kind of mean in my head.

“I hate going to church. Mass is so boring, and I don’t want to take Communion from the same cup as everyone else. It’s unhygienic.”

“It’s the blood of Christ, Mike, it’s pure. Free from bacteria.”

“I don’t believe you. Nothing’s free from bacteria.”

He sniffs again.

“I have a cold. Because of bacteria.”

“Technically, colds are caused by viruses.”

“You’re a virus.”

I gasp.

“That’s an INSULT.”

“Yeah, duh.”

“You just INSULTED me.”

“I know, and?”

“You can’t just INSULT me.”

“Are you joking?”

“I’m not JOKING, I’m OFFENDED.”

“Surely, you’re not serious.”

“My name’s not Shirley, it’s SAM!”

“Stop. Just stop.”

He smiles a little and tries not to chuckle. Mike hates laughing. Whenever he wants to laugh, his face puckers up so instead of laughing, he looks like a plum. An old, wrinkly plum.

Speaking of wrinkles, he has forehead wrinkles. He has a huge forehead, and I swear it gets better each day. I know I shouldn’t swear, but I seriously swear on his forehead that he’s going to die with the biggest forehead known to man.

Like, when he’s 100 years old.

Because at the rate his forehead is growing, exponentially, his forehead is going to be the size of Jupiter.

Or maybe Saturn.

“You should grow your bangs out.”

Maybe he’ll grow his hair in a ring around his head, so he looks like Saturn.

He glares at me and stops smiling.

I laugh. I feel better now. Poking fun of Mike’s forehead, and poking it, which he hates as well, is a favorite pastime of mine.

So is daydreaming. And doodling.

I start to doodle Saturn in my notebook. Saturn is fun to draw, the most fun planet to draw.

I think Mike’s a Saturn type.

I don’t believe in astrology, like astrology and horoscopes aren’t Christian, but he’s definitely a Saturn, regardless of astrology and birth charts.

Mike gets out a book, like always, and starts flipping its pages. He likes spoilers and likes knowing how things end. I’m like that too, but I’m more patient than he is when it comes to reading.

Actually, I just read really fast. So I get to the ending faster than the speed of light.

I wish life was like that. I wish I could know the ending to my life like a fairytale. I hope I have a happy ending.

And I don’t mean, dying and going to Heaven, but like, in love and success.

I remark absentmindedly to Mike as I doodle.

“I hope I’m successful in the future.”

He looks up from his book, his thumb on the page.

“That was random. Why do you say that?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

I slouch deeper on the couch.

“I want to do great things with my life.”

“Everyone wants to do great things.”

“Yeah, but I want to be known for something. Like King Solomon.”

“Who cares about King Solomon. King David is way way better.”

“Nooo, he’s not. Solomon’s better, he actually accomplished things while David just fought wars and killed people.”

“He wrote PSALMS.”

“Solomon wrote Psalms too.”

“Who said that? Everyone knows King David wrote Psalms.”

“Because. It’s my theory that Solomon finished Psalms because David was injured from battle and couldn’t talk or write.”

“STOP DAYDREAMING.”

“You’re doing that thing again, Sam. Gimme that.”

He snatches my notebook away from me and flips through it.
“It’s just a bunch of doodles. Nothing interesting,” I tell him.

“Stop lying. I know you keep a diary. I want to read it.”

He lies down on the couch on his stomach, his elbows propped up as he reads through my “diary.”

He turns each page after several moments reading it.

“You start every sentence with my name.”

He turns the page again.

“Well, almost every sentence.”

I huff.

“I don’t care if you read it, I’m an open book.”

“No, duh.”

He’s reading through all my journal entries. I fidget, feeling kind of uncomfortable. I should keep my journal at home, but I need to write down my thoughts sometimes when I’m at school, it keeps me grounded and makes me feel better when I’m feeling down. And I need a notebook to doodle in.

Maybe I’ll have two journals, a public one and a private one.

Kind of like how there are public and private bathrooms. One meant for everyone to use and one meant just for me.

“Mike, you’re nosier than me. Stop invading my privacy.”
“Stop being noisy then.”

“I’m not NOISY.”

“Nah, you’re noisy.”

Maybe Mike’s right. Sometimes my voice gets high pitched when I’m agitated or excited. Usually I have a quiet voice, but I can get kind of loud. Because I’m an extrovert.

Mike thinks I’m an introvert, because I like to do introverted things like read and write and doodle, but I love talking and most people and have a ton of friends. So there, Mike.

“It’s because I’m an extrovert!”

“I’m an extrovert too, but I’m not as noisy as you.”

“So you agree. That I’m an extrovert.”

“Nah, I still think you’re an introvert.”

“AM NOT.”

“At least I’m not loud like you.”

Mike has a really nice-sounding, low, musical voice. He’s definitely not that loud, but he projects when he’s talking in public. He doesn’t screech unlike me.  

I can’t project to save my life.

I cough at that moment, reminded.
I cough a lot, because I was really sick last year. I had pneumonia, and I almost died. My lungs still rattle from time to time.

Mike looks up from my diary.

“Stop coughing. You cough all the time. And you say I’m the sick one.”
“I’m not sick. My throat’s itchy.”

“Whatever.”

He gives me back my journal and pulls out his notebook. He starts writing in it.

“Anyway, we need to have some fun before I die. I can’t just die like this. I made a bucket list.”

I giggle. That sounded funny. We always have fun anyway, it’s fun talking to Mike.

“You’re not going to DIE!” I say again.

And it’s fun talking back at him. I have fun bickering with him.

I look over his shoulder.

“What do you have in mind?”

He hands me his notebook. He has neat, even handwriting, unlike mine. He’s really meticulous when he writes and he writes really slowly. I write pretty quickly, and I scrawl more than I write.

I flip through the pages. He numbered a bunch of sentences, and there’s 100 items.

“100 things to do in 1 month? Why?”

“Because, 100 is my favorite number.”

“I thought 5 was your favorite number.”

He paused, thinking.

“I have a lot of favorite numbers.”

“There’s no way we’re going to do 100 things in 2 months.”

He frowns at me.

“We might not be able to finish, but anywhere from 75 to 100 completed is good.”

I’m resisting. Resisting not just from habit, but because I’m stubborn. I don’t really want to do this.

“How are we going to squeeze all this in?”

“Easy.”

He pulls his arm out and clasps the back of my head. He pushes my face towards his and presses his lips to mine.

I’m too surprised to move.

It’s warm and soft and feels kind of tingly.

We stay there for a minute, our lips not moving, pressed against each other.

After, he pulls away from me, not looking at me.

“There. One down, 99 to go.”

He gets up and goes to the computers again.

I sit there. What just happened?

I look down at his list again, at the first item.

1.      Have my first kiss.

I need to process this. My mind’s not working, so I take my journal out again.

The first thing I write is,

One down, 99 to go.

And I start writing.

-

100 things. We have more memories than 100. Our first kiss wasn’t fireworks, but it was something memorable, regardless.  And the next two month would be an adventure of our lifetimes. Two sick kids, making the world their oyster.

I wanted to spend eternity with him, no matter how soon he thought he was going to die.

And we’re not going to die anytime soon. There’s too much fun that we still have yet to have, and I’m not going to have it without him.

Here’s to more adventures, Mike.