If it Ain't Broke prompt from The Flame
I hate places like this. They are always so plain and cold and… lonely. Yes, lonely. There are hundreds of people about but no one to talk to. They move about doing their own thing and only approach you if they really have to. I hate it. But she needs me… so I sit and wait on the uncomfortable chair with no one to talk to, freezing my butt off.
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Lucy was the most beautiful girl I had ever met - perhaps the most beautiful girl I ever WILL meet. We were four years old and went to the same daycare place. I was drawing a picture of my dog Spud and she had the yellow. She let me borrow it for a while and showed me her picture.
“This is me.” She said holding up the picture. “I’m going to look like this when I’m older.”
The picture showed Lucy as a giant woman with a big red mouth, blue eyes and very long blonde hair. It certainly explained why she had needed the yellow.
I looked from the picture to Lucy and back again. Lucy had pretty brown hair in bunches and the brightest green eyes in existence. She was cute, way cuter than the picture-girl, and I told her so.
She laughed like I had just told her the funniest joke ever.
When we were seven I ended up in the same class as Lucy. This made me very happy. She was still the most beautiful girl in the world and we had been best friends since that day in the daycare. I remember that she used to come over to my house every afternoon while her mom was at work.
Once, when she was over, she found my mum’s sewing scissors. The lovely brown braids fell to the floor as she hacked into her hair with the scissors. I remember crying and asking her why she cut off her pretty hair.
“If you cut off your hair really short it comes back another color. My Daddy’s came back grey and mine is going to come back like a pretty pop star’s.” she replied with the wonderful logic young children have.
I started crying, telling her she shouldn’t have done it. Lucy just laughed.
Lucy didn’t get her wish of new hair at seven. It grew back after a few months of her being grounded the same copper brown she hated. However, as we became teens she discovered hair dye. Make up also became a must have along with the latest fashions. She was never happy if she looked anything less than perfect. I hated the Barbie doll she had become but unfortunately there was nothing I could do to get away - I was hopelessly in love with my best friend. I couldn’t change her mind either. There was nothing I could do to make her happy with her body.
“I just ate something really funny.” She said. “I’ll be okay though - being sick will help me lose my puppy fat.”
I remember having to shake off the horrible chill that had gone down my spine at those words. I’d heard her vomiting in the downstairs bathroom of my house, I’d seen the seen the sick smile on her face as she came outside and deep inside I had known something was seriously wrong with my Lucy. I chose to ignore my gut feeling and believe her. Lucy just smiled at me.
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Finally, I get to walk through to another room - still horrible, plain and cold but I know I’m getting to go and see Lucy now. Her mother had warned me that I would be shocked. The curtain gets drawn back and I realize that the woman had made a huge understatement.
“Hey!” Lucy croaks at me, her face breaking into a grin.
Her pale yellowish skin stretches tightly over her teeth and her green eyes look dead. My insides feel like they are throwing themselves about inside me as I look at the frightening cigarette burns and cuts that pepper her face. I hear Lucy launching into a rant about how horrible the nurses are because they won’t let her eat what she wants or go to the bathroom alone or use make up.
I can’t understand it.
She was so beautiful - the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Why did she do this to herself?