If You Ever

1

"This is terrible." Kaycee thought to herself, as drops of her tears fell quietly to the canvas art sitting down on her lap.

It was a beautiful, unique painting consisting of rare colours, supposing to depict a sunset. Sure, it was different than the regular depiction of a sunset, but like mentioned before, it was unique. In a good way. And standing out, being unique, expressing herself in a way that no one else did, was all a part of Kaycee's personality.

But being an eighteen year old, having recently moved to LA with her childhood best friend Bailey, was undoubtedly hard. Balancing college, dance, work and having a life of her own deemed to be fairly rough, resulting to the point where Kaycee felt like she didn't know who she was anymore. It was all too, too much to handle. That's when she decided she wanted to explore the world outside of just school, dance and work. That's when martial arts came in, that's when painting came in and that's when cooking classes came in. None of which actually seemed to help destress her.

Nonetheless, Kaycee was also one to continuously put herself down at every opportunity she got. She was the kind of girl, back in high school, who would wail and shamelessly argue with her teachers over her grades that were good enough to get her into some of the most prestigious universities in the country. She had this obsessive requirement of being absolutely perfect at everything. Failure, of any sort, was non-existent in Kaycee's world.

"Kaycee!" Bailey exclaimed, rushing into her bedroom at the immediate sight of her best friend in tears. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She murmured, wiping her tears harshly. "I'm okay."

Both girls stayed silent, knowing very well that the curly haired girl was everything but okay. This was a recurring issue, where Bailey would have to come in and comfort her best friend whilst she sat in her pool of tears. Bailey had gotten pretty good at it, considering it was part of her job description within being friends for close to fifteen years.

"Kayc." Bailey sighed as she took a seat beside Kaycee on her bed, wrapping an arm around her. "These are really, really good. You did a great job with the colours and I love how-",

"Stop." Kaycee interrupted, shaking her head in disapproval. "I don't wanna hear it."

"Hey, we've been over this. You are way too hard on yourself." Bailey continued. "You're basically, like, the most talented girl out there and I can't even begin to explain how freaking proud of you we all are!"

"Bails." Kaycee begged. "Please."

"A girl that can balance school, work, dance and paints and writes and cooks?" Bailey said. "Do you realize, I don't know, how amazing that is?"

"Amazing?" Kaycee spat, followed by a bitter chuckle. "Let's see. I got a C minus on my essay for the Psych class I'm taking, I've missed three whole dance classes this week, I freaking burnt the cookies I made for us last week and in terms of painting...well, we don't even have to go there. These are horrendous!"

"But not everyone's perfect!" Bailey exclaimed, slowly getting frustrated. "We moved out to LA just six months ago and you know what, Kayc? Things take time! You...you can't expect to be perfect 24/7, it's just not a realistic lifestyle and it's clearly not a healthy one either."

"Whatever." Kaycee mumbled, wiping the second set of tears that had begun to stream down her face. "Let it be."

"I can't!" Bailey raised her voice. "Watching you beat yourself up like this is too hard, too painful to watch every single day. I wish you...I don't know...I wish you took it easy on yourself. Maybe, like, sign up for less shifts at work or drop a couple of classes or you know, maybe just go to dance once a week instead of four times a week. It's too much for you."