“I’m done fighting, God,” I whisper. “I’m done running. If you’re up there, if you really care, then please, please help me. I’ll do anything, anything you want me to do, if you just take this away from me.”

The whole world is still, as if waiting, waiting for a breath, a whisper, a sign. The early sunshine peeks out from behind the clouds, the world screeches to a halt, dreaming of an answer.

But none comes.

The wind sweeps by me, tossing at my hair, the sun slips back behind the clouds, the early morning dew sparkles with a trace of what has been forgotten. Maybe God heard me, but he didn’t care enough to answer.

I take out the Bible and lay it gently on the ground, turning it’s crisp pages softly in my hands. “The chemo’s in my body right now,” I plead, my voice cracking. “Every minute more cells are being destroyed. This afternoon Mum’s going to cut off my hair. If you’re up there, you have to do something now. You have to stop this before it’s too late.”

A strange tingle crawls over me, and somehow I know that I’m not alone. Someone is still listening. Ssomeone can hear me.

So I lift my hands slowly upwards, ice cold tears slowly dripping down my cheeks and crashing on the floor. I’m speaking, my words crashing into the still air and echoing silently around me. I spill out everything that I can think to say, desperate to tell my story to the one person who might be able to listen. “God… you have everything. You are everything. I don’t know why you would care about me when you have so much more. To you, maybe I’m nothing. But if you are there, and if you do care, then please… please don’t forget your daughter. Please do something.” I lower my hands and bow my head, a shiver tingling over me. “I need you,” I whisper, and then I fall silent, just listening. Just waiting.

And then everything seems to shift.

The colors blur together, the wind begins to whirl around me. The sky darkens suddenly, the world picking up, moving suddenly, swirling. Leaves tumble from the tree above me, fluttering onto my lap, birds alighting on branches and tilting their heads as if staring in wonder at what is occurring. My heart is thumping wildly, my whole body trembling, I feel terrified, and yet at the same time, I feel a strange, sad sort of peace.

And then the moment ends as quickly as it began, the wind suddenly stopping and the sky lighting up again. I still feel unbearably sad, but somehow, I feel so much less empty. So much less desperate.

I stand up quickly, sweeping the Bible up into my hands and going slowly inside. I’m alone, Mum is at work. I wander aimlessly through the rooms, and stop when I get to the kitchen.

The scissors are lying on the counter, glittering in the orange light. I walk dazedly towards them and open them slowly, pressing the sharp side to my head and slowly closing them over my hair. Long strands tumble to the ground, but I keep moving the scissors, grabbing large handfuls of hair and letting them float away. I don’t want to let a stranger do it for me, just want to be the one to watch it fall myself. It’s better that way.

I know that my hair is a mess, know that the jagged edges look hideous against my face, but I don’t care anymore. I stumble out of the room, sweeping the hair off of the floor and into a trash can and staring up at the paint peeling off of the ceiling. I wonder what Mum will say when she sees me like this.

I carefully avoid mirrors as I leave, shoving the curtains over the windows to stop anyone from seeing through to me. A strange emptiness crawls overy my skin, and I tilt my head slowly from side to side, feeling a deep ache settle over me when no hair flips backwards to my shoulders. No more plastic hair clips, no more gently brushing out the knots, no more watching it fly behind me in the wind. That world is behind me. I’m here now.

I wonder what God would have thought of what I did, wonder if he would have wanted me to wait. I’m still not sure what this means, and not sure how this should affect me or my life. I know that it matters, I’ve never felt that more than now. But I just don’t know how. I don’t know what to do about the knowledge that he might exist.

I pick my Bible up from where I left it on the kitchen counter, switching it from hand to hand, and sit down on the couch, flipping it open to a random page and beginning to read.

Sentences flow into one another, complicated verses looming in the distance, thick with implied meanings that I’m not sure I understand. Each word is rich with depth, with strange, twisted sort of meaning. The truths inside it are so strange...so different from anything that I have ever heard before. I know that they will change everything, and yet even Christians don’t seem to live out what the book seems to say.

But then I flip the page and my eyes drift to a verse that takes my breath away, bringing tears popping to my eyes. I don’t understand, don’t understand what it means or what it says. It doesn’t make sense. And yet it awakens something within me, something that I’m scared to have awakened.

Jesus is standing outside the tomb of a dead man, consoling two sisters whose brother has just passed away. They are shocked and angry, confused about why Jesus did not come and save him earlier. Tears slip down my cheeks, and I flip the page quickly, soaking in every word and treasuring it in my heart,“ ‘I am the resurrection and the life’, ” I read aloud. “ ‘The one who believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ ”

I stare at the words for a long time, lost and confused by what I know is supposed to be a comfort. It doesn’t make sense. Christians do die, no one lives forever. Not even Jesus can stop death.

And so I slowly fumble for my phone, and click on the contact that I know I have to talk to. Know I have to hear from.

The phone begins to beep, and it barely takes a moment before Marya responds and I hear her voice on the other end. “Lyssy?”

I’m quiet for a long time before I finally work up the strength to answer. “Yeah,” I say, but my voice is so quiet that I know she couldn’t have heard me. So I say again, louder, “Yeah.”

“I…” she stops suddenly, and I hear her take a deep breath before she continues. “I’m sorry. Last time we talked, I was really scared. I ran off before I really had the chance to share the truth with you. I guess I was just really… I don’t know, Lyssy, I wasn’t sure what you would say,”

I speak slowly, pronouncing each word and trying not to burst into tears. “It’s okay, Marya, really. But I don’t understand the book. I think I need help.”

There’s a long silence, and then she says quietly, “I think you should talk to Joshua. He’ll be able to help better than I can.”

A pang of hatred hits my heart before I can stop it, and I stand up quickly, fighting for the right words to say. I don’t want to visit Joshua, don’t want to see his face again. It’s a long time that I stand there, too scared to tell her no, but unable to say yes. Finally, I say, “Marya, please, this isn’t about him. I want to hear it from you. My best friend.”

She sighs dramatically, but there’s compassion in her voice when she replies. “What do you want to know, Lyssy?”

I chew my lip thoughtfully before beginning, and then speak slowly, each word careful and well pronounced. “What does it mean when it says that Jesus is the life? I mean, obviously Christians don’t live forever. Is it talking about, like, heaven and stuff? Or-”

She cuts me off, and there’s a certain softness, a certain maturity in her voice that I haven’t heard before. “It means that this life isn’t it, Lyssy. Jesus took death upon himself, and he died for us on a cross so that we could know life through him.”

She is silent for a long time after that, and I don’t know what to say, her words filling the emptiness around me and filling me with a strange sort of curiosity, of dark fascination. “I don’t understand.”

She sighs and I can almost see her shaking her head on the other end, her dark eyes narrowed into slits and her hair swooshing around her head. But she just says, “You will someday.”

A twinge of hurt fills my mind, and I feel again like she’s afraid to tell me, scared of what will happen if I reject what she has to say. She’s still being so vague, so unwilling to answer my questions and so determined to push me out. I sigh and let my finger hover over the red phone on the screen, murmuring to her, “Goodbye, then.”

“Bye, Lyssy,” she replies, and the screen turns black.

I curl up on the couch, my brain strangely foggy and my whole body numb. Despite all of the nausea medicine that Mum gave me with morning, I still feel like I’m going to vomit. I stroke the Bible gently, my mind soaring with images, pictures, confused thoughts of a savior who died. I’m not sure what that means. Or how he can be dead and still be a savior.

But I just close my eyes and give in to the overpowering urge to fall back into sleep.