LILY

The room was plain. Beige walls with nothing but a diploma hanging above a desk littered with papers. Coleen sat down on her brown leather chair and turned to me. She was waiting for me to say something, waiting for me to start the conversation but I wouldn't. I refused to lose the silent battle she had started.

“So how are you feeling today?” I could hear the frustration in her voice.

“Just like every other day.”

She looked at me skeptically.  

“Has the medication been helping you?”

“Yes.” I haven't taken it in two weeks.

“Have you been sleeping better?”

“Yes.” I got two and a half hours last night.

“How’s school?”

“Perfect.” I've missed at least one day every week for the past month.

She glanced down at my mental health evaluation.

“Your total was a three this time.”

I looked down.

“Last year you scored a 27.”

I didn't say anything.

She turned back to me.

“Lilly”

I looked up.

“You have to stop lying about what your feeling.”

I wasn't surprised she had caught me. Coleen wasn't a bad therapist, I was just a bad patient.

I shrugged

“It's easier.”

She didn't say anything.

The timer dinged. My time was up. She walked me out to the waiting room. My mother sat there, reading a magazine. My mother was the type of woman who thought everything would be ok. She never worried too much about anything. Maybe that's why we were so surprised when the one week she spent in her bed after my brother passed away turned into six months.

“I’ll see you next week.” I nodded.

I sighed of relief when she left. My heart slowed down and stopped pounding so hard against my rib cage. I don't like therapist visits.

I grabbed my coat off the grey chair as my mother picked up her purse.

“How was it?”

“Fine.” I couldn't look at her. Not because I can't lie to her because she’s my mother or anything dramatic like that, no, I'm a great liar. I couldn't look at her because if I did I would have to ask her how she was doing. And I knew she would say fine. And I knew she would be lying.

Depression is hereditary. And as much as my mother and I try to ignore it and pretend like its not there, it is.

I walked in front of her. Turned left, straight down the pastel yellow hallway, and waited by the elevator for her. I clicked the down arrow repeatedly, as if it would somehow make the elevator come faster. I just wanted to get out of the building.

By the time my mother caught up to me the elevator had arrived.

I clicked the level one button over and over again until my mother grabbed my wrist and gave me a look.

The elevator ride was short and I almost ran to the glass doors.

I turned on the radio the second we got in the car.

I don't like silence. It makes you think.

My mother parked the car but neither of us got out. I think we both knew that the second we walk through the front door all of the responsibilities that we have would weigh on us. Homework, parenting, schoolwork, happiness. But in this car with the radio playing no one could touch us, not even our own thoughts.

Our little bubble was popped when my eight year old brother knocked on the window.

CATHERINE

I never liked mirrors. Or maybe it was what was looking back at me. My reflection. My body. My face. Maybe it was because because of my insecurities, constantly taunting me. Usually they are not too bad, I can quiet them down. Reassure them that my shirt looks fine or that my concealer is blended okay. That my eyebrows are perfect. Not too long and not too short. Not too thick or too thin. Perfectly sculpted to society's standards.  But mirrors are reminders, so are shop windows or glass doors, or really anything that i can see my reflection in, that as perfect as my eyebrows are, they are never really perfect. That there will always be one hair out of place, or one eyebrow will always be too different than the other.

There's this theory that the reason people are so insecure is because they look at themselves too much. That it's just like when you look at a word for too long and it starts getting scrambled in your head or looking funny, that that's what happens to us. We look at ourselves for such a long time, trying to find every flaw and perfect it, that we start to look different.  

The realization of this did nothing to quiet my insecurities.

So I continue to stand in front of the mirror hanging on the purple wall in the bathroom of the b2 hallway in school, perfecting my eyebrows, making sure my concealer was perfectly blended, and making sure my shirt looked perfect. And as I started noticing more and more things wrong with my face, I willed myself to leave. To get out of this stupid bathroom, or at least out of the way of the mirror, so I wouldn't be forced to look at my reflection,  but I couldn't. The three pimples on my forehead taunted me. The dry patch of skin near my mouth made me nervous.

What if other people notice my flaws just as much as i do? What if they find even more?

Are my lips too big? Are they not big enough? Are my nails too long? Is my nose too big? Do I smell ok?

I heard the bathroom door open and close. Three girls came in. I grabbed my backpack and left.

I put my earbud in my left ear and waited for LIly near the bathroom.

People walked past me. People with hair that fell the right way and thighs that didn’t touch. Guys who would never like me and girls who were so much prettier than me.

“Hey.”

She was sad again.

“Hey.”

I wanted to ask her about it, about her sadness, but we don’t talk about it.

I’ll still ask her though. And she’ll smile and say she’s fine and ignore my attempts to get he to talk. Because talking about it would mean accepting that it exists, recognizing its presence in our lives. Her depression and my insecurities. And she likes pretending she’s fine. Likes pretending her and her mother are in no way the same. So she’ll let me talk, and she’ll reassure me, but she won't let anything slip about her stuff which is funny because Lily is the talkative one. She would talk for so long sometimes I would wonder how she still has things to talk about. Constantly making people laugh almost as if she's trying to convince them that she's just as happy as them.

Or maybe she's trying to convince herself?

But sometimes she would get really quiet, and that's how I knew she was faking it. That as much as she wanted to laugh as easily as everyone else, she couldn't. That she was forcing it out. Forcing herself to appear as happy as they think she is.

LILY

I knew she wanted to ask me how I was feeling. If today was a good day or a bad day. And I knew she would, even though after eight years of friendship she knew I wouldn't answer. I already knew how the conversation would go.

‘Hey Lily what's wrong with you today?’

‘Oh nothing, just tired.’

‘Gosh Lily you have to talk about your feelings you can't just bottle it all up..’

Proceeding with a lecture that would go on for approximately two minutes until the bell rang.

“You know i’m here for you.”

“ You can always talk to me.”

Some of her most famous lines that I swear to you she looks up on google.

She makes me feel guilty sometimes.

That I don’t talk to her about stuff best friends should talk about.

But you see that’s the difference between Catherine and I. It’s easy for her to talk about the deep shit. Her therapist probably has the easiest job in the world. Catherine will talk and talk about everything that she thinks is wrong with herself. But she won’t talk about it in public. Not in a restaurant or in school, nowhere someone can hear because god forbid someone notice one thing wrong with her. Maybe that’s why she comes off so timid. So she’ll ask you about you. How are you? How are you feeling? How was your day? She’ll talk just enough to make you think she’s ok.

And she’ll seem fine.

Convince you that her hands aren’t shaking she’s just cold or that she didn’t just spend an hour in front of the mirror convincing herself that she looks okay.

Because if she can convince you then she can convince herself. Fake it till you make it right. And she’s convincing. An actress really. So you’ll believe her.

But I won’t. Because she’ll whisper to me under her breath  and ask me if her hair looks all right or if I can see the pimple that she tried to cover up. And that’s how I know she’s faking it. Pretending that she’s fine ignoring her problems and listening to yours because they distract her from her own.

Me? I prefer to fight feelings with sarcasm.

But then again, what feelings? I’ve been numb for weeks.

“Catherine?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s going to get better right?”

She looked at me.

“Yeah.” Well I guess we’re both liars then.