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LEILANI WAS diagnosed with bipolar depression when she was six years old. Her parents had the hint that she harbored the mental illness because her mother had it, but never knew until the week she went from hot to cold in seconds.
They gave her meds for it, but she barely took them. Her words were "they make me wanna kill myself.", so she never took them. She would go weeks with being all happy and cheery, loving her life; then the next she's laid in bed with the lights off and curled up in a ball.
She never properly learned how to deal with it, but Joseph and Alex adjusted to it. When she would get bad, they took all the sharp objects and medicines out of the house; hiding them or putting them in the safe. When she was happy, they hid the cash and anything that would make her impulsive.
Alex and Joseph knew that she would yell, cry, scream, do anything to get her way. They knew her like the back of their own hands, and did everything in their power to make sure she never did anything rational.
When the three first moved here, Leilani was cold. She stayed in her new room, sitting in her light pink armchair and stared out the window; watching everything. She didn't eat, she didn't cry, she barely said a single word.
I never adjusted to it, but I tried my damn hardest. When she was having a bad day, I would try to cheer her up. I remember about a month before she died, I bought her food and new clothes with the money I was going to use for drugs. She smiled a total of seven times that day, and it made me happy.
It was an illness, just like my addiction was an illness, I understood it in a sense. Not being able to help what you do because your brain is screaming at you to do something, that you didn't want to do. I understood her, and she understood me.
Leilani lays in her bed, the curtains drawn and her lights off as she wraps the large comforter over her body; her glazed over eyes staring at the small details on the wall the pass time. Her unwashed hair is put up in a ponytail, her baby hairs falling in her face.
Two soft knocks come from her door, and she doesn't even blink. Pulling her knees up more, she wraps her arms around her legs as she sniffs; looking at the light above her. The creaking of the wooden door sound through her room, and she blinks once as she listens to the soft footsteps padding against her carpet.
"Hey, uh, do you need anything?" Fez softly whispers into the room, and Leilani just sniffs in response. Fez nods, squinting his eyes so they adjust to the dark room.
Alex had decided to inform Ash and Fez about her illness, so they had an idea of what was happening. Alex sat the siblings down in the kitchen, informing them about what it was and how to deal with it. He knew she was going to turn cold again, so he prepared the siblings for it.
"She's probably not going to talk to you" Alex tells Fez and Ash as he sips on his coffee, the boys nodding in response.
"Um, so how do you get her to eat?" Ash questions, scratching the back of his neck as his brother looks at him.
