The hospital was cold. No matter how homey they tried to make it look with the large couches and colorful drawings decorating the walls, it would still always be a hospital. The nurse’s station at the back of the room and the vital machines lining the wall were constant reminders of that. I decided to sit down on the corner of one of the couches, unsure of how I was supposed to act or what I was supposed to do. I opened one of the books I had brought with me and tried to read. My eyes scanned the first page over and over again, but my brain computed none of it.
Eventually, the other girls started to make their way into the room, having just gotten out of whatever group therapy they were just in. I kept to myself, avoiding the stares pointed in my direction. I was the new girl, something I’ve always hated being. As the other girls started to get settled, finding spaces on the couches, by the tables, or on the floor, I let my eyes wander over each one of them. Judging. Comparing. Wondering. There was one girl in particular that I was drawn to. She was wearing a navy blue sweater with an image of a wolf howling at the moon on the front of it. We were each allowed to keep a box of belongings on the unit with us, and inside of hers I spotted a Harry Potter-themed journal as well as physical copies of a popular Harry Potter fan fiction that I loved. I knew immediately that we would have to be friends.
I found out that her name was Addy. She was 16, just like me. We stuck by each other’s sides for the rest of the day. I found out that she had only gotten to the hospital two days before me, so she was also still new and hadn’t made friends with many of the girls yet. In between groups, we’d curl up on one of the couches together and talk about Harry Potter. There was something comforting about being able to talk about magic and wizards, pretending we could be at Hogwarts together instead of the hell hole we were stuck in.
Addy and I told each other all of our secrets. We weren’t very different at all really. From a young age, we’d both been followed by a shadow of sorts. Neither of us could pinpoint when it was that the shadow had found us, but he did. He’s dark and tall, with a hollow face and sunken eyes. He had wrapped his long, cold fingers around me, gripping my shoulders and holding me close. I found comfort in him, and it turns out that Addy did too. I grew up with the shadow looming over me and whispering in my ear, influencing my decisions. He’d tell me what I needed to do in order to be accepted. Always making promises that he couldn’t keep. He was a liar and wouldn’t give up easily. I found it impossible to get rid of him, and so did Addy. That’s how we ended up here after all, in what the media would likely refer to as a “looney bin” or maybe even a “nuthouse.” Quite funny phrases considering that most of us were just your average teenage girl, aside from the fact that we all seemed to hate ourselves so much that we refused to eat food.
In group therapy the therapists would tell us to talk to the shadow like he’s a real person, to even give him a name. Addy and I named both of our shadows ED, short for eating disorder (we weren’t feeling all that creative). The therapists said that distancing ED from ourselves in that way could give us power. Addy called bullshit, as she would with most of the information the therapists would tell us. She never really managed to take group seriously, always making up funny lies to tell the other girls as we’d give our introductions before diving into the group’s subject matter. One day she told everyone that she owned 8 parakeets; the next day she said that she was from Russia and that her dad had belonged to the Russian mafia. Her antics never failed to make me laugh, especially when the more gullible girls would truly believe every word she’d say. Finding joy in the little things like that was probably what I needed most at the time.
Over the course of the next few months, Addy introduced me to new music, new movies, and actors she was obsessed with. We met other friends as well. Together, we felt our lives slowly untangling from that of our shadows, and instead entangling with each other. We did everything together. We read books together, played games together, gossiped together. And one day, when we received news that one of our friends had died, we held each other and cried together. Addy made me feel something in a time when I was so used to feeling nothing, and I don’t think I’d still be here without her. I read a cheesy Pinterest quote once that said, “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” Sounds like something you’d see on a mug that your middle-aged mom gifts to her other middle-aged mom friends. However, for once in my life, I think it might just be true.
Emma Jackson is a sophomore at Utah Valley University in Provo, and is majoring in Digital Marketing and minoring in Political Science. She has always been creative and enjoys writing as a hobby, using it as a way to process her thoughts and emotions. She enjoys volunteering and doing humanitarian work, and will be teaching English to elementary students in Mexico for 4 months in 2025. She strives to be an advocate for mental health issues, LGBTQ+ rights, and women's rights.
"Library" by shikiro famu is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
