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            You know, when I think about it, her fainting on our hiking trip was kind of something everyone should have foreseen. 

                She never really walked perfectly, she always swayed. She never had enough breath; she’d be catching it every three seconds. She was always cold, always wearing a sweater and another jacket on those mild days. She hardly ate, telling everyone that she’s full and then disappearing off into the trees on the side after we all finished. Her sleeping habits were off too, but we didn’t notice.

                I wish we had.

                She fainted randomly when we were walking back to the cars to put our stuff away. I wasn’t close to her; I barely knew her, so I was kind of put back when they asked me to take her to her house and not anyone else. I tried to reason with them—told them that I didn’t know her and stuff—but they didn’t budge.

                So, I took her home. I made sure she was in bed and I decided to make tea for her. No one in her house was home and it made no sense for me to leave her in the condition she was in now. I was in the middle of pouring the tea when she came downstairs, her fragile, boned body barely making any sound.

                I handed her the cup and leaned against the counter with my hands crossed before my chest. “How are you?” I asked, quietly.

                “Fine, you?” Her eyes didn’t make contact with me.

                “Good.”

                There was silence for a few minutes. I looked over her body. It scared me, a hell of a lot. She was bony, the veins showing through her think, pale skin. I shivered internally, almost being able to feel how cold it must be. Her hair was limp. I’d seen her before this, before any of the things that happened to her. Her auburn hair used to fly in curls everywhere and her bright green eyes would sparkle as she laughed, showing off pink lips and white teeth. All of which were dull and diminished now.

                “Can you help me up the stairs?”

                I looked up from the floor—I must’ve turned my head to the ground as I was thinking. “Yeah, sure!” I answered. I walked up behind her; every time she ran out of breath, I’d lift her to the next stair or two.

                We got to her room and sat down on her bed. Her room was the complete contrast to her. While she was worn down and beaten, her room looked lively and bright. The walls, a bright purple with black handprints of her as she grew up, her age written inside in chalk; it was happy. It was a timeline. Her shelves lined up with teddy bears. Apparently, she collected them every year. She wrote the year down too. Another timeline. And a small bookshelf in a corner, full of books with a sticky on them, the year was written in bright pink. A final timeline.

                If you looked carefully, everything ended at 2011, nothing after that, not a teddy, a book or a handprint. Nothing .

Everyone knew what had happened in 2012. It was sad and at the same time, very frightening. It was a shock as well, to the entire population of our school. I would be lying if I said we lived in a small town. We weren’t in a book or movie or anything. We lived in a big ol’city; one of the largest in the world.

                But it was a surprise to us that it was someone from our own school.

                It was November of 2012, I remember, we—Brayden and I (a friend of mine)—had been walking through the hallways when we heard soft sobs. Brayden and I rarely ever talked, but we understood each other. He was deaf so it wasn’t like I ever really talked with him, we just signed, so it wasn’t that hard to pick up on the quiet cries.