You never really know someone until you see them in the light of goldfish tanks.

After Lacey had told me what had happened at camp, we drove downtown to the only culturized place in Clintwood- a tiny strip mall with a pet store, laundromat, pharmacy, and Target. Leaving Lace’s Jeep in Target’s parking lot, we had walked, my arm around her shoulder, towards the little shop at the end of the road. This road was the culmination of the life in Clintwood. Nowhere else could you find more than a hundred people together at one time. Not surprisingly, even in the 100-degree heat, swarms of people bustled in and out of tiny shops, greeting everyone like an old friend (which most of them were).

The bell made that annoying ding as we entered the dark shop. Birds squawked and feathers flew as cats meowed and snakes stared at us. I removed my arm from Lacey’s shoulder and fell into line behind her as we walked down the aisle towards the back, where a wall of dimly lit fish tanks were stacked up. Lacey’s face became awash as the blue light highlighted her features and turned her hair into a brand new color. Her smile grew as she watched iridescent fish swim through the water. I couldn’t stop staring, as the words that those people had told her returned to me. How could she even think for a moment she wasn’t beautiful? I wanted to run to someone, everyone, take a picture and tell them how beautiful my best friend was. Her voice broke me out of my trance.

“So, which one?” I shook my head and sent her a lopsided grin.

“I don’t care, pick anyone you want,”She started to walk down the line of tanks until she came to the classic orange goldfish container. She leaned in, placing her hands on the glass. Lacey stared intently at the fish near the back, who was lazily making laps around the cage.

“I like this one,” she announced to the man working behind the counter. He shuffled towards us, little plastic green net in hand. Minutes later Lacey had a fish, tank, and decorations. (I was out thirty dollars as well). But the smile on her face as she looked at her little animal, was worth it all.

If I had known that for seven months I wouldn’t see that smile, I’d pay anything in the world to stop what was coming. But at that moment, I was just happy that she was enjoying a five dollar fish.

As we stepped back into the heat of the afternoon, I grabbed the two grocery bags so Lacey could hold her new charge.

“So I can’t decide a name,” She said, as her flip flops and my Vans created an unusual melody that filled the street.

“Tesla?”

“No, that’s more clown-fishy,”

“Ummm, Fiona?”

“Ew! No!”

“Martin?”

“No w-, Hey! That’s not that bad,”

“Then Martin it is,”

“Welcome to the group Martin”. And with that Lacey and I skipped the rest of the way to her Jeep.

The next weeks were a breeze as my mom and I planned out my senior year, including things like pictures, college, and my grades. I had tried texting Lacey but was always told she had something going on. Lacey and I had other friends- Michelle, Anna, Tyler, and Trenton. Michelle and Anna had become a part of our circle junior year when I was paired with both of them on a project for AP Chemistry. Tyler was Lacey’s cousin, and Trenton is my neighbor. (His mom got me to go to ‘real’ school). So I didn’t think a lot about Lacey’s absence until I contacted the others and all of them said, “no we haven’t seen Lacey either”. It wasn’t until three weeks post Martin’s arrival that I finally just drove to Lacey’s house.

I grabbed my key from the dash and locked my car. Smoothing out my t-shirt, I walked towards the door. Lacey’s jeep was parked, so I knew she was here. I knocked, and when I got no answer, went ahead and unlocked the door. There was Lacey, sitting on her countertop, laptop on her legs. Earbuds in, she hadn’t heard me come up behind her. I leaned over her shoulder to see what she was looking at, but she felt my body heat and whipped around.

“Ed!” She yelled, pushing me backward and slamming her laptop shut.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to make sure you hadn’t died,” I said, getting to my feet and coming to the kitchen to face her. Lacey’s hair was pulled back into an attempt at a ponytail and she was wearing a sweatshirt that read, “You’re Cu Te” (science joke, I know). Her legs were dangling from the marble tops, and papers were strewn everywhere. I propped my elbows against the rock and looked at her.

“So what’s been shakin’, bacon? You haven’t answered my texts, calls, or anyone else's attempts at contact.” Lacey turned to look at me, unconsciously pulling at the long sleeves of her shirt. She hopped off the furniture, gathered the papers together, and began to walk towards her room. I followed her as she began to talk.

“Mom went with Dad on a business trip, so I’ve been home alone since Sunday. The first few days I just slept,” She laughed, placing the rather large stack of articles on her desk.

“I’ve just been really busy, I’m sorry Ed.”

“Too busy to text, ‘I’m busy’?” I asked, walking over to her desk. I picked up a stack of the papers and began to sift through them. “Ten ways to lose ten pounds” “How to lose weight fast” “Get rid of the Thunder Thighs!” seemed to jump off the page and assault my vision.

“Um, Lace, you do know you aren’t fat, right?” Lacey turned towards me, armfuls of books and papers cradled in her arms. She had her round black glasses perched on her nose, accentuating the freckles that ran across her cheeks and around her temples. The remnants of day old makeup clung to her face and created a miniature storytelling me how she had slept and lived the past weeks. (Due to the mascara smudges under her eyes, I’d say sleeping was all Lacey had done). She looked gorgeous.

“I know, I was just researching. I’ve been running some since I got back and just want to get in shape.” She flashed me her winning smile and turned back to placing her books and paraphernalia on the metal desk that took up an entire side of her room.

“Get it shape? Lacey, you’re tiny!” I turned to her, placing my hands on either side of her waist. She tried to wiggle out of my grasp but I grabbed a tape measure from the desk and ran it around her waist.

“30. 30, Lacey. You’re literally skinnier than most people. So I don’t want to hear any of this ‘just getting into shape’ nonsense. We are going to go downstairs and eat gelato, and then go to a movie, and then come back here and eat more gelato.” Lacey smiled and squeezed me into a hug.

I love Lacey’s hugs. She interlocks her hands behind your back and puts her head to one side as she leans in and sighs. Lacey gave me a hug on my first day of highschool and I’ve gotten (thankfully), much more after that. There’s just something about her honeysuckle perfume mixed with the coconut shampoo and energy that makes me never want to let her go. And even though my mind was content to hug Lacey for forever, I also noticed something that flashed through me like a warning.

I could feel her hip bones again, but even more now. And as I had my arms wrapped around her slender ribcage, I could feel each of the bones containing her lungs. Was she sick? When I finally released her from the hug, that worrying feeling in the pit of my stomach grew as I noticed how big the sweatshirt looked on her. My gaze swept across her room for a clue, and I noticed a black Five Star laying on her bathroom counter. That wasn’t there before.

“Hey, as much as I’d love to dig into the gelato right now, I really have to use the restroom. Go get two spoons and your laptop, okay?” I smiled, flicking a loose hair on her head.

I locked the door and put a towel over the tiny peephole at the top of it. Grabbing the spiral, I opened it to see that there was nothing on the page. My heart sank. I returned it to the sink, but then a thought struck me- maybe I should go through the rest of the notebook. I quickly shifted through it until I came to Lacey’s handwriting.

Black Tea - 10 calories

Cheese- 35 calories

Ice Cream- 140 calories

OFF LIMITS-

All meat and grains

All water based fruits and vegetables

Anything with processed sugars and refined ingredients.

I grabbed my phone quickly and typed in the symptoms checklist “counting calories, constricting diet, and sudden weight loss.” The two words that loaded on the screen took my breath away. No. This can’t be happening. Lacey’s not like this. She’s happy with who she is, and we are going to Cambridge in eight months. Me and her, together. But the two words that flashed up at me threatened to take our carefully made plans and ruin them.

Anorexia Nervosa.

Two little words that meant, literally, loss of appetite. A loss of appetite was going to halt four years of dreams and plans. I carefully placed the notebook back on her gray counter, next to War and Peace and her toothbrush.

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

Lacey was watching a show. A fleece blanket pulled up around her chin and a tub of gelato was laying, wedged in between two cushions. I flopped down beside her, and was relieved to see a gigantic spoonful of chocolate, probably 300 calories, enter her mouth. Unknowingly I let out a sigh, which ripped her attention away from the screen and towards me.

“What’s up with you? You came here acting like I had died or something, you run off to my bathroom, and now you’re zoned in on watching me eat gelato.” Her hazel eyes bored into me as another spoonful made its way to Lacey.

“Nothing, I was just worried, Lace. Next time you drop off the grid just tell me. Okay?” The annoyance that was apparent on her face didn’t even bother me as I rationalized with my fears that were churning inside of me. It was a problem of mine. Even though Lacey had brought out the less antisocial Edward Michaels in me, something I have never held as my strong suit was letting my emotions out.

When I was in preschool, we read a story about a little boy who lived in Holland. Now Holland is encapsulated by dikes, the walls that are protecting their city from drowning in ocean water. One day as the boy was playing along the dikes, he saw a tiny trickle coming out of one of the walls. Without thinking, he hurriedly shoved his finger into the hole, because he knew that if he didn’t stop the water now, the hole would grow and drown everyone in the town.

When two army officials knocked on my doorstep when I was nine and handed me my father’s baseball hat and journal, I had a hole in my dike. The emotions started trickling down as I sobbed in my room, clutching that hat like a lifeline. After a week of grieving with my mother and alone, I had placed my finger in the hole and told myself enough is enough. Since then every screwball life’s thrown at me was placed behind the dike and held back by myself.

So here I was, convincing myself that Lacey just wanted to get it in shape, I blindly believed her, even though every piece of evidence was screaming the opposite. Yet with every spoonful of gelato that Lacey ate I believed that everything was okay.

I was wrong.

After the day that Lacey calls ‘the failed rescue’, the world fell back into it’s predictable normalcy. Lacey’s birthday, July 29th, was a flurry of laser beams and donuts (on my part). Lacey had declined to partake in our friend group’s birthday tradition. Usually, we order however many donuts said friend is in years, and eat them all. As children, this task seemed nearly impossible. How could seven eight-year-olds each eat eight donuts each? Our teeth screamed in fear as each sugary morsel neared our mouth. As we got older the task seemed less impossible, yet more stupid. So by now, eating seventeen donuts five times a year was not socially acceptable.

But when you’re with your real friends, nothing you do is socially acceptable, (if we’re honest.)

School began on August eighth, amidst the outrage of seniors as our summer freedom was snatched from us one last time. After re-adjusting to homework, late nights and early mornings, our group managed to find time to continue spreading our weirdness. I was surprisingly content, for somewhere between the assignments and coffee drinking, I had found a serene limbo. It was this idea that even though life was stressful and something was always due, I was content that nothing terribly awful or life-altering had happened. I had my senior quote, (Lacey’s famous, “I hear you saying that, but you have absolutely no correct contextualization”), I had my college acceptance, and I had my friends.

But I didn’t have Lacey.

It was September 19th, and I was walking down the hallway, my nose buried in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Lacey and I had been trying to read through many classics our senior year, and she had to choose this mammoth of ink and paper.

“The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...” I mumbled under my breath as my black vans scuffed the linoleum. Lacey immediately popped into my head, laughing with a sparkle in her hazel eyes. As I continued to think of my best friend, I ran into her real self.

“Lacey!” I exclaimed, wrapping her in a bear hug. My arms, lean and semi-muscular, wrapped around her small frame. Was she always this tiny?

“Ed,” she sighed, burying her slightly frizzy copper locks into my chest. She snuggled close as I inhaled the unique smell of Lacey. Her big eyes looked up at me, and instantly my vision of happy Lace dissipated. Her eyes were so...dull. A wall of unshed tears clung to her lashes like snowflakes on a power line.

“L-Lace, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? Sick?” She gave me a half smile, turned out of my hug, and grabbed her Calculus book.

“Walk with me.”

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

“So you’re telling me that because you’ve been isolating yourself in your room, you’re on an antidepressant?” I said as Lacey and I walked down an aisle in Food City.

“I told them it was stress-related but they didn’t believe me. Ed, they’re medicating me for nothing. Scientifically, that’s horrible.” she mumbled, turning to grab a jar of salsa aggressively. (Did I mention Lace is extremely passive-aggressive? This girl could hold onto grudges for years.)  

“Lacey, are you depressed?” She halted, turning to look at me, salsa hanging haphazardly in her hand. Her gaze wasn’t amicable, but not apprehensive. There was longing, fear, anger, and numbness all wrapped into a jumble of emotions. I’ve always been good at reading people, but right now, it was like Lacey was a completely different language.

“Ed, I-,” She paused, twisting a lock of hair in her fingers.

“No Ed, I’m not depressed.”

“The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...”  Very true, Tolstoy, but for some reason, I’m feeling that right now with Lacey, it’s the opposite.

We continued our crusade through Food City, collecting a rather wide variety of junk food. Lost in my own thoughts, I battled mentally with the paradox in front of me. Lacey, by herself, was a beautiful, smart, energetic girl with so much talent and future. Athletically built but slightly curvy, her body was made for her personality- spunky. Converse was her go-to, and we were always teasing her about her obsession with jeans and shirts, which is all.she.wore. (“Practicality is necessary for discovery, Ed. I’m not going to find a cure for an epidemic level diseases in heels and a t-shirt dress”)

And then there was this Lacey that was standing in front of me. Day old mascara clumped on her lashes, framed by a messy mass of slightly unwashed hair. Shuffling feet wearing flip flops, sweatpant-clad legs, holey long sleeve shirts, and fingernails bitten to the quick. What happened to my best friend? I reached to grab her arm, intent on finally confronting her and getting answers. I could only take so much.

“Lace-” My hand wrapped around her forearm, as Lace gasped and tried to wrench her arm away as tears filled her eyes.

Tears?

She stumbled backward, knocking over a display of Cheddar Chex Mix. Bags of orange labels scattered all over the floor as Lace stood there, shoulders stooped, right hand clutching her left arm as her chest heaved from the adrenaline rush she had just experienced. I looked around, thanking God that no one witnessed our ordeal. I gently placed my hand on her shoulder and steered her toward the exit, groceries, and a prodigious Chex Mix mess, forgotten.

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

As soon as Lace shut the passenger door to my car, I turned to her.

“Roll up your sleeves. Now.” Her head whipped around, mouth parted open in indignation.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Hazel and blues eyes, one defiant and fearful and the other worried and resolved, clashed silently in my 2005 Honda.

“Ed, no. I can’t.”

“Why? We’ve been through thick and thin. Don’t insult my intelligence- I have a very good idea of what you’ve been hiding.”

She sighed in resignation, and slowly raised her sleeve, showing me little welts and scars in a neat line like soldiers.

When we were in ninth grade, all the freshmen were required to take a Health class. One of the chapters was about self harm, but it was so vague and stereotypical that I had discounted and forgotten everything I had read. This was complete new territory. My breath lodged in my throat not because I was afraid- I wanted to tell her I would feel the same way if she had been in a car accident or was having to have surgery. I was hurt because she was hurt. She wasn’t a freak, she wasn’t weird. She was wounded.

Lacey choked back a sob as big, fat tears rolled down her freckled cheeks. Shame radiated in waves off of her while she drew her legs to her chest.

Wounded.

“Lace I-”

“Wait.” She said, laying her hand on mine, latching her watery gaze on mine.

“Let me explain. It started after camp, um, when I got the note.” She sniffed.

“Sure, it went against everything everyone has ever told me, but I believed her Ed. I was stupid enough to believe her, and then I starting thinking I was a traitor and fat and ugly and all these things.” As she took a breath, I interrupted her.

“Do you think you deserve...these?” I asked gesturing to her arm, my brain trying to process why she felt the need to do this. She surprisingly shook her head.

“It was like I had this weight on my chest, limiting my airflow and causing me to panic. I was pacing in my room, trying to breathe, as all the things they said pressed in on me and I was all alone again. Alone. My arm scraped against the edge of my desk and as I felt the pain I could breathe. I grabbed something sharp and cut three small lines on the top of my arm. I began to breathe again, and put it away.”

“Lacey, that isn’t three small cuts.”

“I-I know, I just made it a habit whenever I felt overwhelmed”.

Overwhelmed. That’s what clicked with me. Sometimes people look at honors students with great grades and a close group of friends and just assume that our brains keep us under stressed, because we don’t have to worry about school. It’s the opposite, really. We are in constant fear of messing up due to the societal expectations put upon us. We worry about our GPA more than our health, drinking our brains away with inhumane amounts of caffeine just to study for one more hour. (For a test over a lesson we already taught) We are socially insecure- we know we’ll be the last ones asked to the dances and the last ones invited to parties. Put us in front of judges from a university and we’ll shine. But if you put one of us in a group of people our own age we’ll flounder. Smart kids are always overwhelmed- but it’s an unspoken rule that you do not say you’re “overwhelmed”. Weakness is for the average. Smart students are supposed to be impenetrable.

My voice caught against the lump in my throat as Lacey sobbed into my arms. I felt the dam begin to well up and I was this close to letting it erupt. What a relief it would’ve been, to just cry along with Lace in Food City’s parking lot. To let my emotions, kept up so long, out in a rush. To let all the heroic attempts of being this stoic figure of intellect fade away. To be overwhelmed.

But I didn’t. I was afraid that if I started crying the tears would never stop. I had to be strong for Lace.

“I’m so tired, Ed.” She mumbled under her breath, her head encased in my Cambridge sweatshirt.

Lacey sighed softly as she slowly fell asleep in my arms, as the lights flickered on in the parking lot and people drove by, unaware of the girl falling to pieces in my arms.  

Life was back to normal. After I had learned about what was really going on inside Lacey’s head, we had driven home and brought her parents up to speed on what was happening. (To say they were surprised was an understatement. Imagine Leonardo DiCaprio winning an oscar, plus another Disney World)

Lacey lived at Clarkside Institution every Friday afternoon to Sunday night. Granted, it was weird to have my best friend leave school every weekend and trade her sweaters for short sleeves. I was used to us staying up late watching movies and doing our homework, not me sitting silently on my bed. And then, when the release was signed by the doctors and I got a postcard in the mail telling me that she was coming home for good, I was once again sitting in Lace’s driveway. (This time shivering from the cold).

The white Jeep drove up, and out stepped the girl who had been haunting my dreams and thoughts since that day in Food City.

“Ed,” She breathed, hesitantly stepping towards me, her band t-shirt hanging loosely from her figure as her uncovered arm screamed ‘look at me’.

“Lacey “.

“I, um, missed you.”

“I did too.” And with that she launched herself into my arms, knocking me backward and causing me to stumble a few feet. Lacey buried her face into my neck as I inhaled her scent like I did every other time she hugged me. The coconut and water lily scent was masked under a layer of hospital grade cleaners and disinfectants, but I still smelt her. It was like coming home after having a long day at school, when you get to drop your backpack full of books that you know and just taking the breath you’ve needed since 8 am.

“The food was horrendous, no, I did not make friends, yes, I am better, now let’s go catch up on TV please.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the house, my large frame dwarfing her. Was she always this small?

It was good for her to be back, but little did I know that in the span of about a week, she’d be gone in a whole different way.

You’d expect honor students to watch educational docu-dramas and classic films, right? That the free time we have would be spent in the pursuit of extra knowledge; people assume we would use our resting hours outside of school to make ourselves even more like Einstein. Well that is the biggest lie since Nixon said, “I’m not a crook”; for movies are where the smart ones find normality. We watch the ridiculously cliche romantic comedies. (The “Titanic” always causes outrage- Jack could have survived). We watch the boom crash action movies and criticize the protagonist’s decisions. For us, movies aren’t entertaining or enlightening. They’re a distraction from all we are expected to do.

“You know, I honestly don’t understand how she can swim in that dress. Physically the water’s added weight would make her drown,” Lace commented from my side as we watched, would you look at that, “Titanic”. Rose was struggling to save her love, and here we were criticizing her choices.

“Lace it’s a movie, anything can happen in the movies”.

“I know, it’s just stupid. She has on like three layers of pantaloons, just take the skirt off, Rose.”

I laughed and moved the blanket closer to my chin. Ever since ninth grade when I met Lace we had made a tradition of watching movies on Friday nights. Usually it was accompanied with buckets of popcorn and boxes of candy, but tonight I was the sole devourer of the popcorn. Lace had opted to sip on black tea, telling me she, “wasn’t hungry”.

Eventually, the movie was over and Lacey was asleep on beside me. I turned to look at her. Her breath was a calm tempo, a steady inhale and exhale. Her mug of cold tea lay forgotten in the floor beside a half empty bowl of popcorn. She had just cut her hair to right below her chin, and pieces stuck up at odd angles, amusingly defying gravity. It was amazing to have her back, but it felt like there was this space between us that wasn’t there before.

Sure, we still talked about school and our friends, about families and college, but we didn’t talk. It was all superficial- which were conversations I detested. At school, people would smile and laugh on cue. That’s what we’re supposed to do. We have two faces, our real one and the one we wear most of the time. Both the confident and the insecure feel the need to hide who they really are for fear of rejection.

But that’s what I loved about Lacey and I’s relationship. We were able to be our real selves and not worry about each other’s judgement because we didn’t care. I didn’t care that she only liked sharp cheddar cheese and that Lacey hated country music. She didn’t mind that I zoned out into my thoughts most of the time and that I did like some country. We were both beautiful messes- a tapestry of pains and joys, weaving together something so tangled yet gorgeous that made us unique.

Yet after all we had been through, she felt guarded to me. She would stop herself before she said something, and her decisions were left without an explanation. I could try to say it was the treatment or what she had been through recently, but in all honesty, it had started during the summer when she came back from camp.

I blamed myself. She’s my best friend. I should’ve seen it. I knew her quirks and mannerisms yet I had missed her battle within herself.

As the blue light of the TV illuminated the dark room, my frustration with myself and her boiled. Why hadn’t I seen it? Why hadn’t she told me?

I was trying to process everything swirling around my brain when Lacey stirred.

“Hey Ed,” she whispered.

“Hey Lace”.

“Did the movie end?”

“Just like it always does”.

“Oh okay. Ed, you do know how important you are to me? That no matter what happens you’re my best friend and that you’ve got such a bright an amazing future.”

“Lace what-”

“Hush I’m not done. You mean the world to me, and I know the world will be shocked by the impact you’re going to make.”

“Lacey, why are you saying this?”

Her head cocked to the side slightly as she thought for a second.

“It needed to be said, Ed”.

I woke up really late the next day, my head fuzzy with forgotten dreams and cloudy memories. Last night had left me stumped. Never, in the four and half years I had known Lacey, had she randomly told me how much I meant to her. It was just something mutually understood.

My phone buzzed me out of my reverie. I rolled over to see I had been placed in a group chat with our friends, but not Lacey.

Tyler34: Um did anyone else get a big long text from Lacey this morning?

ANNA: yeah I did.

Trrent99: me too. It was really mushy...nice, but mushy

Mitchella: same over here

ANNA: ed did you get one  

EDtheWard: well not a text but last night we were watching a movie and she told me a lot of     nice things

Mitchella: is she ok ed ?

Tyler34: this was the first time she texted me in like 5 months

ANNA: yea shes been really distant

EDtheWard: shes been going through some stuff but yea she felt distant to me too

EDtheWard: did you guys reply ?

Trrent99: yup

Mitchella: ^^

ANNA: yea I did

Tyler34: mhm

EDtheWard: did she respond ?

Mitchella: no

Trrent99: no

Tyler34: no

ANNA: no… no response

I sat up and hurriedly threw on a t-shirt and some sweats. I tried calling Lacey as I ran down the stairs, my sock clad feet skidding as I ran. No answer. My mom looked up startled as I appeared in our living room, red faced and out of breath.

“Ed, is everything alright?” She asked, her hazel eyes-so similar to hers- stared at me worriedly.

“Lace-texed-responding” I gasped, mentally regretting not running anymore. Mom must’ve seen the anxiousness in my eyes as she stood up and guided me into a seat, handing me a glass of water. Her eyes held a motherly determination and worry so comforting that I almost started sobbing right then.

“Ed, breathe. Start from the beginning and tell me what’s wrong,” I inhaled shakily, steadying my hands on my legs.

“Lacey texted all of us telling us how much she appreciated and loved us. She told me in person yesterday, but she won’t answer my calls and mom she’s changed so much and what if she’s hurt and mom I just don’t know what’s happening mom I’m so scared.” I said hurriedly, my breath now erratic. My heart was pounding out of my chest as my mom processed what I had just told her. She swallowed slowly, and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Ed, you’re panicking. Lacey might’ve just felt appreciative and then she could be busy today. You’re brains assuming the worst. Lacey is a perfectly normal, well-adjusted, smart seventeen year old. She’s fine.”

I stood up, plastered on a fake smile and gave her a hug. Keeping my expression neutral, I got into my car and drove to the Food City where I had realized Lacey wasn’t as perfect as she led everyone to believe. I parked in the back and rested my head on the steering wheel. Breathing in, breathing out, I attempted to calm down.

I hadn’t told my mom what Lacey was dealing with. It was something not necessary, she had enough stress with her job and my graduation to worry about. Mom was thinking rationally- from what she knew. To her, Lacey was just grateful and busy. But something inside me, behind the dyke wall, knew what had happened. But I refused to think that way. I couldn’t.

“Lace’s just grateful and busy,” I said to myself, but I was interrupted by my phone ringing. Mrs. Charleston was flashing on my screen. Slowly, a quivering hand reached out to grab it, and I tapped the green. As soon as I heard the sobbing on the other line, my heart broke.

It was my childhood all over again. The feeling in my chest when I had clutched my father’s baseball hat and cried for hours was rising again. I held my phone tightly as I cleared my throat.

“Hello?”

“Oh, Ed, she...she...Lacey has…” Mrs. Charleston broke down again, sobbing uncontrollably on the phone. Fear gripped my heart as I sat in my car, the little car that Lacey had rode in so many times.

“Mrs. Charleston?”

“Ed,” She paused, clearly gathering herself.

“Ed, Lacey is in the hospital. She, well, she tried to kill herself.”

3:27 is what my phone said when I hung up with Lace’s mom.

3:27 is when I died on the inside.

EDtheWard: Lacey tried to kill herself

EDtheWard: im going to the hospital now

EDtheWard: ill keep you updated

“Please, please, please” I begged, as I changed gears and sped out of Food City.

I hate hospitals. When I was little, I’d have anxiety attacks before I went, sweating profusely on top of that little plastic bed as the doctor came closer. At 13, there was a slight probability that I had a tumor in my brain so the doctors prescribed a precautionary MRI (there wasn’t anything there, but it was the worst time I’ve ever had). That was the only moment before now that I had to be in the hospital. And now here I was, frantically searching for a nurse to tell me where Lacey was. Everywhere I looked, there was movement- nurses hustling between rooms, fathers pacing in the waiting area while mothers sobbed into their hands. I stood frozen watching story after story unfold the one way I didn’t want Lacey’s to. The noises around me began to hum and ring just like they did when I was 13. I felt trapped again, unable to move or to do anything.

“Excuse me, can I help you?” A kind, older nurse’s hand tapped me on my shoulder. Her crystal clear, almost transparent, held a shine to them that one would not expect in such a scary place.

“Charleston? Lacey Ophelia Charleston?” I croaked, afraid to disrupt anyone in this place. Her eyes flickered with pity as she nodded softly.

“Just arrived about an hour ago. She’s in critical condition currently, but I can take you to her family. Are you her boyfriend?” I shook my head.

“But she’s alive?”

“As of,” The nurse paused, glancing at her clipboard, “2 minutes ago. She’s in room 189.”

I whispered a thanks and began to walk down the hallway- but the nurse called out from behind me.

“Son, she’s very vulnerable right now. Watch what you say- every word can be seen as a weapon to her. She is still as you knew her, but she’s fighting the hardest enemy, ourselves.” I nodded silently and walked towards the room.

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

“Ed!” Mrs. Charleston exclaimed once she saw me. Her eyes were bloodshot and watery, telling me that she had been crying more than was probably healthy. She hugged me tightly, her hands interlocking around me just like Lacey did. I breathed through my nose, blinking rapidly in an attempt to keep the dykes at bay. No. Not now- you’re seventeen, not five.

“Is...she-” I stuttered, the words spilling out of my mouth. Mrs. Charleston released me from my hug and searched my face, tiny laughter lines encasing her laughter-less eyes.

“Her father’s in there right now; he talking to the doctor. Ed, it was so sudden...Oh this is my fault isn’t it? I should’ve done more, I should’ve talked to her, why did we just think she was okay after Clarkside? Ed, I should’ve known!” She began to sob, clinging to me like she was drowning and I was her safety. I led her to the plastic chairs outside of the room and sat beside her, trying to keep myself together for her sake. As her regrets pour out in the form of tears, I stared at the white floor beneath me.

“She is my best friend- I know when she’s about to cry and just how to make her laugh. How did she hide this from me? I saw nothing, Mrs. Charleston, she never did anything to raise suspicion.” As I breathed those words out in an empty attempt to ease the burden from Lacey’s mom, I remembered.

“Ed, do you think I’m pretty?” I look up, but Lacey is folding her shorts, appearing to be very concentrated on a fleck of paint.

“Of course Lace.”

“I mean, do you think other people think I’m pretty?”

*

I walk over to her desk. I pick up a stack of the papers and began to sift through them. “Ten ways to lose ten pounds” “How to lose weight fast” “Get rid of the Thunder Thighs!” seemed to jump off the page and assault my vision.

*

“Lacey, are you depressed?” She halted, turning to look at me. Her gaze wasn’t amicable, but not apprehensive. There was longing, fear, anger, and numbness all wrapped into a jumble of emotions. I’ve always been good at reading people, but right now, it was like Lacey was a completely different language.

“Ed, I-,” She paused, twisting a lock of hair in her fingers.

“No Ed, I’m not depressed.”

*

Lacey choked back a sob as big, fat tears rolled down her freckled cheeks. Shame radiated in waves off of her while she drew her legs to her chest.

Wounded.

It was like watching my life in rewind, seeing all the times I had missed it. It was there. I had seen it all but I had been so caught up in my make believe world of perfect people and perfect grades and I had lost her. My selfishness had created a Lacey that was perfectly normal, that had had a bump in the road yet quickly found normality again. Lacey was not where everything good and perfect is. Lacey was, well, Lacey. I had seen what she was going through and put it behind the dyke, just like everything else.

I thought that dyke was my safety, my sanctuary. I had thought that I was preventing heartbreak by putting every emotion behind a wall that only I had the power to break down. I had put myself in a cage not to lock myself in, but to keep others away from me. When I had blamed Lacey for the distance and guardedness, it was actually me. I was the reason I hadn’t seen what was coming.

“Love, the doctor’s done.” Lacey’s dad spoke quietly. Mrs. Charleston looked at me.

“Ed’s coming too, he’s practically family,” Mr. Charleston nodded and let his wife past. As we walked towards the doctor’s office, he whispered to me.

“I want to tell you before we get to the office- Lacey went into Hypovolemic Shock and is currently drugged and asleep. Her room is there,” He said, nudging me through the door. “They don’t let family into the office, so you can go see her now.”

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

Her room was a symphony. Gentle whirrs of machines and timed beepings created a song that I didn’t want to hear, and her slow and (thankfully) steady heartbeat created the rhythm. Her pale face was clear of makeup, with bruise colored circles under her eyes. Her hair created a barrier, showing me where the pillow ended and she began. I dragged the chair close to the side and sank into it, sighing heavily. I reached to grab her hand with mine, and accidentally turned it over, seeing where her attempt was.

I choked back a sob and rested my head on the bed. Breathing in time with her, reassuring myself over and over again that she wasn’t gone. She was here with me.

“Please get better” I whispered, pushing a loose strand of hair out of her face.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you what you needed to hear. I...I was selfish. I wanted you to be one way and was upset when you weren’t. Lace, be yourself please. I miss you. I miss my best friend. I…” My voice caught.

“I need you, Lacey.”

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

I left quickly, nodding my goodbyes and returning home. Mom was at work, so I slowly walked back up to my room and crawled under my heavy comforter. I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream. I just stared at the ceiling above me.

I slept on and off for the next few days, rarely coming out of my room.

EDtheWard: shes alive

There she was. Standing in a paper white t-shirt and generic gray sweatpants. Her wavy brown hair was held together precariously by a single hair tie. The lights flickered to an irregular beat, highlighting the strands of copper that streaked and danced through her head. Her back was to me, only emphasizing the gap (both physically and emotionally), between us. I could not see her face, but what I could see broke my already bruised and torn heart.

Her back. I could count every rib, every crevice, creating a story only understood by those who knew her. And only to those who knew her well. Like with everything else in her life, this girl had planned, processed, and produced this disease so that even at close inspection one could not tell what was going on. Only through the little things did I even suspect that there was a crack on the perfectly created mask of Lacey Charleston.

The annoying flickering lights brought my wandering mind back to the dreaded reality. We were mere feet apart; all I had to do was take a few steps. Yet I stood there, transfixed, watching the girl with the tiny white tube plugged in her arm scan the gray sky above her.

The silence was unbearable.

The thought crossed my mind.  It smothered my breath and stopped me from vocalizing all the things I needed to tell her. To tell her how wanted, how needed she was. To ask her questions that had been going through my head non-stop since I got a phone call days ago at 3:27pm. To yell at her, to admonish her for almost leaving me. The silence kept me from actions to express the words I couldn’t utter. She felt it too, I know, because she tapped her foot on the concrete floor trying to create meaningless noise to fill the quiet.

Because that’s the thing about humans- we hate silence and have to fill it. I think that when we are finally alone with our thoughts, we terrify ourselves. We fill our day to day lives with the white noise of cars, and music we don’t relate to, only to keep our brains busy at night with thoughts of the next day. From the time we are born we learn to stuff our minds with thoughts to distract ourselves from silence of our uncertainty.

“I’m not surprised it didn’t work,” she stated, breaking me out of my reverie. In a voice that betrayed what was happening to her. The voice of someone who had almost died.

“Maybe”, I said, clearing away the silence lodged in my throat as I walked towards her, “Maybe it wasn’t supposed to work.” Her face turned slightly towards my voice, and I could see her constellation of freckles.

“You know, I was scared. I, I had been numb for so long, and the first real emotion I feel is fear.” She laughed bitterly.

“I thought I wasn’t capable of being scared anymore,” she whispered, a lone tear making its way down her ivory skin, leaving behind a watery track. We were now side by side, but the distance only felt greater. In fact, it was more comfortable when her voice wasn't so clear and when I couldn’t see the brokenness and death in her eyes. When she was asleep and peaceful, her struggles hidden behind her closed eyes. By standing by her side, I was no longer an observer of the struggle of Lacey versus herself, but a part of this.

“Ed, I thought it was over.” Her voice broke with the realization of her crimes against herself, and she wrapped her arms around herself. She turned to look at the ceiling, her thick eyelashes creating a halo for her mesmerizing eyes. “ED almost beat me.”

“I did too.” and that's when I finally cracked. All the worry, pain, grief, and fear I had let well up in my dyke broke loose, and suddenly I was drowning in my own thoughts. The thoughts that cut off my oxygen as I began to flounder through seven months of telephone calls and discoveries, seven months of anger at not having a normal best friend, seven months of pain and feeling lost. I was dying at the thought of Lacey Charleston without Edward Michaels.

Edward Michaels without Lacey.

Our breaths caught as our tears subsided many minutes later; we stood in room 189, looking at a gloomy November sky. And as we watched clouds, different colors of gray; the walls that Lacey had built, covered in barbed wire, and guarded, were disarmed. And as we saw people walk across the streets, the remnants of my dyke began to crumble and wash away, allowing me to finally feel again. I realized then, that no, we were not okay now, but yes, someday we would be.

Humans, are complex creatures. We are perfect actors who can mask our pain with a pretty face or hide our emotions behind a dyke. Just because my struggles didn’t put me in a hospital bed like Lacey, we’re the same. We are selfish. We are incomplete. We are the farthest thing from perfect. But we are here, and that is enough.

We are enough.