To My Best Friend Who Tried To Let Herself Die:

There’s something about a name that can truly draw you in. Names give people a dimension. Whether they’re fulfilling a stereotype that name is said to have, or completely defying it, their name makes them who they are. Someone named Micheal could break your heart, and you would never look at anyone named Micheal the same again. Or, someone could so profoundly affect your life that their name becomes ingrained in your soul’s very testimony. I think that’s how it was with her. All of that. I heard her name when I was at the age that we pretend to be adults, but deep inside we still harbor that desperate desire to retreat to lazy childhood summers. To me, her name painted her as a fairy; a delicate being that was at her very essence superior to me. I was pale and white, weak and small. My body was in no way curved like hers, and I was too simple to ever be seen. I was just a little daisy in a cluster of wildflowers. She was to me a soft pink, delicate petals, and breath that smelled like rose gold. Soon, she was no longer an idea. She was solid, physical, beautiful, but so dangerously pliable. I felt that if I touched her, her petals would one by one drift to the ground. But she held herself together so well. They would reach to tug her from the ground, but something about those roots held her down. Or so we all thought. Today, I know that wasn’t true. Her roots were weak. She was still that soft, gentle fairy I had an idea of so long ago. I had only solidified an idea of her. She was ready to allow herself to be tugged from the ground. The reason she couldn’t be uprooted was because of us. We held fast to her roots, choking in the damp darkness. We broke and snapped alongside her, but our roots were stronger than hers. We knew she would do the same for us, so we tried to hold her up as she bloomed. She saw us. She felt us. But the hands tugging on her petals were so strong. They pulled. And pulled. I screamed her name, imbuing it with as much power as I possibly could, but she couldn’t even hear me. They snapped her stem, and plucked her petals. They fell one by one to the river of my tears, with the echoes of “he loves me, he loves me not” pounding in my ears. I drowned out those repetitions with my own. I said it over and over, that name that was shattering me.

“Lily, Lily, Lily...”

I saw her arms one day during swim practice. I didn’t say anything at the time. Should I have? Of course. Seeing them brought a lump to my throat. I thought about how the blade would have opened her olive colored arm up, and how the crimson color would have been shocking against the pink of her irritated skin. She told me she fell down the stairs. I said that I believed her. I went home and tried to do the same to myself. I was too scared. She was a lily, and I was just a daisy. I stood in her shadow. 

Boys were desperate. They wanted to hold lumps of our skin in their sweaty hands. I was scared that they would break my delicate little petals, but she wasn’t. She wanted it to happen. We wore the kind of outfits that we saw on our Instagram pages, and stood in the mirror. We weren’t happy with what we saw. All I could see were those legs I hated, the breasts that weren’t as big as they were supposed to be, the waist that couldn’t be held in the pinch of two fingers. I looked at her as what I should be, but she didn’t see me. She saw her flaws too. We cried together. I thought she did it in shame. After all, she was a lily. I was just a daisy.

She told me how to do it once. I don’t think she was trying to teach me, honestly. I think she just thought I wanted to know. Two fingers, the back of your throat. That’s all it took. Easier than a diet. No one would ever notice. I cried the first time I tried it. I could barely brush my tongue without gagging. What I saw in the toilet afterwards made me love myself a little more. But I just thought of myself as a coward. She wasn’t. She could do what I couldn’t. She was a lily, and I was just a daisy.

My mother told me not to hate anyone, but I hated the girl who sat down and exclaimed how she wished she could eat a cookie, but the calories were just too much. I hated the look Lily gave to her own plate when she heard that. I hated how she made me hate myself, but not enough to have the endurance to do what my best friend did and throw that cookie out. I ate it anyway. But she was a lily, and I was just a daisy.

I thought going vegan and sugar-free would just be a phase. But it wasn’t. No cheese. I love cheese. So did she, even though she was lactose intolerant. I couldn’t go through with it. No way. It was just too much. Plus, my mom made the best mac and cheese. But wasn’t it to be expected? I was just a daisy, and she was a lily. 

High school was hard. It helped to have her there. She was my sister. The day they took her, I broke. I cried so hard that I couldn't breathe. I’ve cried that hard twice, and both times were over her. She was locked in there. I knew that the sun wouldn’t reach her there. She needed the sun. She told me when she got back that girls would slip their food into the potted plants. I wondered if she did too. Probably. She was a lily, and I was only a daisy.

She wasn’t mine anymore. She wasn’t my fairy, gowned in petals. She was faded, cracked, and dehydrated. Her bones showed through her once silky skin. I hugged her and they cracked under my teenage grip. Her spine traced a harsh line down her back. I ran my fingers along it and shivered. How could she do this to herself? Maybe I didn’t ever get to know. I was just a daisy, and she was a lily. 

When they took her for the last time, the light left my world. I knew I wasn’t going to see her again. If I did, she would be browned out and wilted. Broken, even if she survived. I had things to move on to. I was so angry at myself for it, but I couldn’t help but be thankful. That love I had for her kept me going. And the horror at what she had done to herself stopped me from doing the same to myself.

So yes, maybe I wasn’t the same powerful lily that she was. But I was a daisy. I grew anywhere, and I endured. There was no beauty for me to emulate; only myself. Soon, I know she will return to me as a bulb. I will still be the same as I was, but she will not be. I will have to teach her what she inadvertently taught me, and it will hurt. We aren’t flowers, or fairies, or jewels. We’re girls, broken, tear stained, and razor blade scarred. And we shall, whether as magnificent blooming lilies, or insignificant daisies, endure. Together. And I’ll always hold that name next to my beating, broken heart.