5I always had admired my best friend for how she could cope in tough situations, how she could always keep a level head when things get tough, how she always swapped her moods from silliness to seriousness. She always seemed average not normal, never normal but average…average family life, no drama. Weird personality though but that has nothing to do with this.
It wasn't until I saw her sister when I realised there might be something wrong, her sister looked pale, tired, too skinny and depressed, nothing like the girl she was. I cornered her one day and got her to admit what's wrong.
She told me that their father had left, for another woman, that their mother is completely depressed and clingy, that their brother's emotions have gone violent, that she doesn't know who she is, she hates her father and she can't stand the taste of food and her sister, my best friend, doesn't seem to be affected.
It didn't seem right, I looked through my memories for the past few months and yes I noticed that my best friend had circles under her eyes, that teachers had called her in for private chats and that her smiles aren't as dazzling as usual. People have pulled me away and asked if she was all right because something just seemed off.
But she seemed fine, normal, weird, just her being her.
So I pulled her away one day, dragged her into a secluded spot and sat her down.
"Why didn't you tell me about your Dad?" I demanded
She looked at me blankly her eyes, her very beautiful eyes blank.
"How can you pretend that it isn't happening?" I shouted "your sister is ill, your brother is confused, your mother is depressed and your father isn't there, how can you pretend?"
"Because" she said flatly "I'm the great pretender"
I felt cold, the great pretender, and then I look back, at how empty her eyes can be sometimes, how wonderfully brilliant she is at acting, how fascinating her stories were, so imaginative, how her head was always in a book, how she seemed to live in a whole different world from me.
Oh yes she could pretend, oh yes she's not completely there but that didn't mean she wasn't affected by her father moving out. She was affected; she was probably as hurt as the others.
She was just better at pretending.