February twenty-sixth.

That was the day that I almost lost my best friend, and I remember it like it was yesterday.

I had woken up much earlier than usual that morning despite the fact that I had gotten almost no sleep the previous night. The reason for my lack of sleep was because I had experienced a very vivid nightmare in which Lucas died, and that prevented me from sleeping for the rest of the night.

After I had given up on getting any sort of sleep after spending hours and hours tossing and turning, I decided to go to Lucas's dorm and check on him since the nightmare had given me a really bad feeling about him, especially since he's been feeling very depressed recently.

"Lucas?" I whispered softly as I knocked on the door just as softly. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach as several moments went by and I got no answer. I then resorted to pulling a bobby pin out of my dress pocket and using it to pick the lock so that I would be able to go inside.

Once I had picked the lock, I slowly pushed the door open and looked for the light switch by feeling around the wall. I flicked the light switch on and squinted at the sudden bright light filling my vision. I blinked a few times as I adjusted to it and called out for Lucas again. Just like last time, there was no response, and it wasn't until my eyes had adjusted to the light that I saw why Lucas hadn't been responding.

He was lying on the floor with his eyes closed, but he didn't look like he was sleeping. His chest was rising and falling at an extremely slow pace, and he wasn't moving at all. I was nearly driven to tears as I saw just how tiny and frail that he had gotten over this past month. So many of his bones were visible because of how skinny he was, more bones than you would see in a person that was the healthy kind of skinny.
"Lucas!" My voice cracked as I called out for him for the third time. "Please... say something, anything! Please... I need to know that you're okay."
My heart somehow managed to drop even further down into my stomach as he still didn't respond. I quickly got down next to him and started shaking him.
"Lucas, this isn't funny!" My voice cracked again as I struggled to hold back tears. "This really, really isn't funny!" I said this even though I knew better. I knew that he wasn't faking, but that's what I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe that he was doing this as some kind of cruel joke. I wanted to believe that I still hadn't woken up from my horrible nightmare and none of this was real and I wanted to believe that my best friend was more than likely dying right in front of my eyes.

As I dialed 911 (but not before dialing 999 like an idiot because I had had 999 ingrained into my mind rather than 911 after living in England for several years,) I could feel my entire body trembling as I held my phone in one hand and Lucas's hand in the other. I told the operator what was wrong after she answered my call and asked me what my emergency was. I also answered the questions that she asked me and stayed on the phone with her.

As I was waiting for the ambulance, I felt Lucas weakly squeeze my hand, giving me a sign that he was alive other than the occasional rise and fall of his chest and his dangerously slow pulse.
"Keep fighting," I begged him as I briefly pulled my phone away from my ear. "If you aren't going to do it for yourself, do it for me. Please..." That was when the tears that I had been holding back for what felt like an eternity finally fell. "I can't lose you. You're my best friend, and I... I care about you a lot."

*****

It felt like several infinities had gone by before the paramedics finally arrived and began taking Lucas out to the ambulance. All of the commotion, of course, drew curious bystanders out of their dorms. Some even whispered quietly amongst their roommates as they pointed over at Lucas, obviously wondering what was going on. The campus police also got involved, which wasn't really surprising at all. The paramedics quickly explained the situation to them and they put Lucas into the back of the ambulance as quickly as possible. I climbed in after the paramedics once I had been given permission to enter after asking them if I could join them.

*****

I stayed right by Lucas's side, held his hand, and kept him company until we arrived at the hospital and he was almost immediately taken away by doctors and nurses. I sighed as I watched them push him away until they disappeared out of my line of sight. When that was the case, I sat down in the waiting room and hoped that Lucas would be okay. I also hoped that the time between now and finding out what had caused this entire situation to occur in the first place was mercifully short.

*****

Unsurprisingly, time passed by extremely slowly. Honestly, it felt like time has been moving in slow motion and only returned to moving at a regular pace when a doctor came out and told me that he had news regarding Lucas.
"We were able to figure out what caused all of this." The doctor began. "Through all of our tests, we were able to determine that Lucas had nearly starved to death."
My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open when he said this. I then immediately became angry at myself.  I knew for a fact that he hadn't eaten for quite a while, and yet, I continued to let him carry on and not eat anything. I should've forced him to eat, I should've forced him to get out of bed, and I should've forced him to get back to do what he loved; making movies.
"We were also able to determine that he had swallowed an entire bottle's worth of pills." The doctor continued. "To be completely honest with you, we're glad that you came into the picture when you did because if you had arrived even just a few minutes later..."
I started crying again after hearing what the doctor had said. I was trying to be discreet about it, however, because I really didn't like crying in front of other people all that much.
"Don't worry, everything's going to be okay now." The doctor quickly reassured me. "We removed the pills from his system and we're forcing him to eat a little something. He'll be just fine after a few days of rest and eating."
"Thank goodness," I whispered as I quickly wiped my tears away. "Um... is it okay if I go and see him?"
"Of course." The doctor replied, a small smile crossing his features. "He was asking about you actually. I think it would make him really happy if you went and saw him."
"Of course I'll go and see him," I said, the faintest hint of a smile on my face.

*****

The doctor and I parted ways when he led me to Lucas's room. I closed my eyes and exhaled sharply before I knocked on the door.
"Lucas? It's me, Ellie." I said after I had knocked on the door. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah." It was a faint response, but a response nonetheless.
I slowly opened the door and stepped inside. I couldn't help but gasp as I saw Lucas and shut the door behind me. He was hooked up to so many different kinds of machines. Honestly, I didn't even know what about half of them even did, and that just made it even worse to look at.
"I know, it's really scary," Lucas said, seeing my reaction. "But I'm fine. Really, I am."
I then proceeded to walk over to him, noting that his face looked much too perfect given the fact that he nearly died not that long ago. Then again, his face always seemed to look absolutely flawless, but not in a natural way. It always seemed like he was using makeup to hide something, but I knew that that couldn't be the reason why since he didn't strike me as the type of guy to wear makeup. However, I knew that now was nowhere near the right time to question him about that, especially since I was just glad that he was alive.
"You scared the shit out of me," I told him as I sat down at the edge of his bed. "I actually thought that I was going to lose you." Yet again, I was so close to crying. "I... I honestly don't know what I would've done if I did."
"I'm sorry for scaring you," Lucas said. "But I really didn't expect you to care all that much."
"Are you kidding me?" I couldn't even believe that he had said this. However, him saying this gave me the courage to tell him how I really felt about him. "Of course I care. I care a lot." I paused for a moment. "I really like you, Lucas, and I mean the more than friends kind of like. I've liked you this way for a little while now, but I never wanted to tell you because I was so terrified that you didn't feel the same way and that if you did like me back and we ended up getting into a relationship that didn't end up working out, it would ruin our friendship. That's why I tried falling out of love of you, but that ended up failing miserably. In fact, I just ended up falling in love with you." I stopped myself before I rambled even more than I already have. "Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I really, really like you, Lucas. I like you a lot."
"I really, really like you too, Ellie." He replied after a couple moments of silence had gone by. "And yes, I mean that in a more than friends way."
"Really?" I asked as I scooted a bit closer to him.
"Yeah, I do." He smiled sheepishly and blushed a bit. "And now that our feelings for each other are out in the open, there's something that I want to ask you." He didn't bother waiting for my response. "Will you be my girlfriend?"
"Yes!" I replied without a second thought. "Yes, I will!"
Lucas smiled happily as he held out his arms towards me. "Come here."
I happily accepted his offer and carefully wrapped my arms around him. I hugged him gently due to the fact that he was very frail and had so many different kinds of machines hooked up to him. I also rested my rest on his shoulder.
Needless to say, I was very excited about whatever was ahead of Lucas and me in the future now that we were officially dating.

February twenty-sixth.

That was also the day that my best friend became my boyfriend.

~~~~~

The days went by in a blink of an eye and before I even knew it, today was the day that Lucas and I packed up all of our things and went back to North Carolina.

The routine of going out into the kitchen, fixing myself a bowl of cereal, and sitting on the couch to chat with Dad and Papa that I had developed every single morning for the past two weeks now made me sad because I knew that it would be the last time that I would do it for quite a while. In fact, I almost didn't want to go home. Almost. And that was because I hadn't realized just how homesick I was until I had spent these last couple of weeks in London. It's crazy to think that when I first left for North Carolina, I was so eager to leave London behind. But now, two years later, I was so adamant to leave London behind.

Lucas seemed to sense that I was sad that we had to leave since he wrapped an arm around my waist and would occasionally rub my back. His actions were only slightly comforting since I knew nothing would able to fill the void that would be left upon departing for North Carolina.
"Ellie, you're awfully quiet today." Papa pointed out. "What's wrong?"
That's when it happened. That's when I set my cereal to the side and rested my head on my lap as I began crying. I even started to shake a little bit.
"Ellie?" Concern laced Papa's tone as I felt him place a hand on my back. "Tell me what's wrong. Please, I want to help."

After a couple of moments, I was able to pull myself up from off of my lap and look at him as I pulled him into a tight embrace, an embrace that was so tight that any onlookers without context to the situation would've thought that me letting go of him would result in him disappearing forever.
"I don't wanna go home." I felt like a child whining after their parents told them it was time to go home from their favorite place in the entire world, but I didn't really care at the moment. "I'm gonna miss you guys. I didn't realize how much I missed you guys and London until I stayed here for an extended amount of time."
"Dad and I are gonna miss you too, but you have to go back." Papa's grip on me was barely there compared to my grip on him. "You have school to go to. Besides, you can always text or call us if you want to talk."
"It's not the same though." I sighed softly as Dad joined in on the hug, not really doing anything to help ease the pain though. "I can't hug you guys or see you without a screen in front of me in North Carolina."
"I know, but you really have to go back," Papa said as he ran his fingers through my curly blonde hair. "You can always come back next Christmas and then you can move back to London once you're finished with university."
"I guess." I sighed sadly as I wrapped my arms around the two of them. "I love you guys, and I'm going to miss you both so much."
"We love you too," Dad replied, finally chiming into the conversation. "And we'll miss you too."
"We'll be counting down the days until next Christmas," Papa said with a faint smile. "Until then, just be sure to keep in touch often."
"I will," I promised as I finally managed to pry myself away from them, but only because I knew that I had to get ready if I didn't want to miss my flight back to North Carolina. I picked up my bowl of cereal, which had been severely neglected, and took it out to the kitchen before I placed it into the sink and began heading upstairs. However, I only got up one step before Lucas quickly rushed over to me and grabbed my arm.
"Wait, before you go up there, there's something I wa- need to tell all of you."
"What is it?" I asked. I couldn't help but think that whatever he was about to tell me was really bad.
"Just come back out to the living room and I'll tell you." He replied as he began leading me out there. He only let go of my arm when she was standing where I, Dad, and Papa could all see him. He shook a little bit as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"There's something that I've been hiding. A really big something." He continued as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the last thing that I would expect him to pull out of his jacket pocket; makeup wipes. He then proceeded to take one of the wipes of the container before slipping the container back into his jacket pocket. I watched as he placed the makeup wipe on his face and began moving it all around his face. As he did so, deep scars were only revealed and when he pulled the makeup wipe away from his face, I could see that these deep scars covered his cheeks and some of his jawline.
"Oh my God," I mumbled as I stared at him and covered my mouth. I could also hear Dad and Papa gasp behind me.
"See? This is why I kept my scars hidden." Lucas frowned as he looked down. "I knew you guys would react like this." He sighed. "Ellie, if you don't want to be with me anymore because you don't want to look at my ugly face, then I understand."
"Lucas, I can't believe that you would even think that," I replied as I went over to him and placed a hand on the side of his face, feeling the roughness of some of his scars when I did so. "I want to be with you no matter what, and some scars aren't going to stop me from wanting to be with you."
"Some scars?" He retorted. "Pretty much the entire half of my face is covered with fucking scars, Ellie."
"I don't care," I stated boldly. "I... I still love you." My heart pounded after saying that. Even though we've been dating for as long as we have, Lucas and I had never said, "I love you," to each other. I'm not really sure why this was the case. Perhaps we were both waiting until it felt like the right time? Regardless of whatever the reason was, I felt like right now was a more than perfect time to tell Lucas that I loved him.
"You do?" His face sank in relief and he smiled brightly.
"Of course I do." I smiled back as I happily kissed his cheek, his scars not even a consideration of whether I should kiss him there or not. However, my smile quickly faded away when I realized that it was no longer right for me to keep my own secret hidden anymore.
"Lucas, there's something that I need to tell you too." I frowned even more. "Well, it's more of a show rather than tell, but still. There's something that you need to know."
"Go ahead." He replied. The look on his face and his tone told me that he already knew what was about to happen.
"Here goes nothing," I mumbled to myself. Like Lucas had done before revealing his secret, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I could feel my entire body trembling and my heart pounding as I hesitantly stepped out of my heels and watched as the world shrank around me. I heard Dad and Papa gasp at the same time once again, obviously shocked that I had actually gathered up the courage to show my true height to someone that wasn't them.
"Wow, you are really tiny. Tinier that I thought, that's for sure," Lucas said as he looked down at me. He then smiled and added, "But I don't care."
"Lucas, I'm four foot eight." I sighed, using American terms to tell him how short I was since he's not really that familiar with UK terms (not yet, at least.) "You're five foot eleven. We have a foot and three-inch height difference."
"And you think that I care?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, yeah." I looked down at the ground.
Lucas placed his hand underneath my chin and slowly lifted my head back up so that I was looking up at him again.
"Well, I don't." He replied with a big smile on his face. "I still love you too."
I smiled I got on my tippy toes and wrapped my arms around him as best as I could. I smiled even more when he leaned down and kissed me, only pulling away when he needed a breath.
"Beautiful. Just beautiful." Papa suddenly chimed in as he clapped and wiped away tears. Dad was also clapping and wiping away tears. "That just goes to show that you two are truly meant to be."
"Wait, so does that mean that you don't care about all of the scars on my face?" Lucas asked as he looked over at my parents, still holding onto me.
"Of course not." Papa gave him a genuine smile. "All Dan and I care about is that you're treating our daughter with the kindness, compassion, and respect that she does, and you do all of those things. Scars or no scars, you do all of those things, including making her happy. That's all we could ever ask of you."
"Thank you." Lucas smiled sheepishly as he began blushing. "I really do care about Ellie, and I do my best to show that."
"Well, that all shows, that's for sure." Dad gave Lucas a genuine smile as well. "We're very glad that you ended up with our daughter."
"Me too," Lucas said as he planted a kiss on the top of my head.
"You two better start getting ready," Dad told us as he checked the time on his phone. "Your flight's leaving in less than two hours."
"Wow, you sure are in a hurry to get us of here." I teased as I bent down and picked up my heels.
"We'd love for you two to stay longer, but we know you have university to worry about," Dad said. "That's why it's really important for you guys to not miss your flight."
"Yeah, yeah," I replied with a faint smile as I began heading up to my room.

*****

As I was packing up my stuff, I reached into the back of my closet and pulled out the only two pairs of shoes that I had that weren't heels; a pink pair of Converse and a pair of silver Converse Chuck Taylors. I then shoved the heels that I had just been wearing where these two pairs had been and began putting on the pink Converse (after I had dug into my dresser and found socks, of course.) The first step of learning to accept and love my height was telling Lucas the truth, and now the second step was tossing heels to the side and wearing sneakers instead since not only would it help me learn to love and accept my height, but it would be much better for my feet in the long run.

"Look at you." Lucas gave me a proud smile once I had gotten the shoes on. "You're not wearing heels for the first time since... well, since I've known you."
"No, look at you." I returned the proud smile. "You're not wearing makeup for the first time since I've known you."
"Yeah." His smile turned from proud to nervous as he grabbed all of his concealer and makeup wipes from inside his suitcases. "I guess I won't be needing any of this stuff anymore."
"I can take it off your hands." I offered. Lucas used the same shade of concealer that I did and there was nothing wrong with having a good supply of makeup wipes. "That way, they won't go to waste."
"Good point." He said as he placed all of the makeup products into a suitcase that I had already finished packing. "They're officially all yours."
"Thank you," I said as I packed the other pair of Converse I wasn't currently wearing into the suitcase that I was currently working on packing stuff into. My plan was to leave all of my heels behind in London and go shoe shopping for more sneakers when I got back to North Carolina.

*****

Silence feel between Lucas and me until we had both finished packing our luggage and taking it downstairs.
"Hey, so, I know you're probably wondering how exactly I ended up with all of my scars," He said to me as we were walking down the stairs.
"I am, but I don't want you to talk about it unless you're one-hundred percent comfortable with talking about it," I replied. "I imagine that it's a very sensitive topic for you, so I don't want painful memories being brought up if you don't want them being brought up."
"I'm fine with talking about it." He shrugged like it was no big deal as we set all of our luggage down by the doorway. "Well, now I am, at least. I wasn't at all before."
"Well, you can tell me on our way home." I smiled. I was proud of him for everything he had done today. I was proud of allowing his scars to no longer be concealed, I was proud of him for getting rid of his makeup so that he didn't revert back to his old ways and conceal his scars, and I was proud of him for being willing to talk about the story behind his scars.

*****

"I guess this is goodbye," Dad said to Lucas and me after he and Papa had driven us to the airport and helped us get our stuff ready to be loaded onto the plane.
"No, it's not," I replied. "It's a 'see you later.' I'm coming home next Christmas, remember?"
"Yes, I remember." Dad smiled softly. "If that's the case, see you later."
"See you later." Papa smiled as well as he pulled the three of us into a group hug. He didn't break off the group hug until it was announced that the flight that Lucas and I were going to be on was boarding.
"I'm already counting down the days," Papa said with a sad smile. "I love you, Ellie."
"I love you too, Papa." I smiled back just as sadly. I then looked over at Dad and said, "I love you, Dad."
"I love you too, Ellie." Dad mirrored the sad smiles that Papa and I had on our faces. "Call or text us if you ever need anything. We're always here for you if you ever need anything."
"I will," I promised. I then grabbed ahold of Lucas's hand and waved goodbye to my dads before he and I began walking onto the plane.

*****

"Everyone's staring at us," Lucas mumbled as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Well, they're staring at me, at least."
"Don't worry, they're staring at me too," I reassured him. "I mean, we do look like a pretty odd couple at a first glance." I laughed a little.
"Yeah, we do." He agreed, laughing a little as well. "But at the end of the day, we love and respect and each other, and that's what's important."
I nodded in agreement.

A couple of moments of silence went by before Lucas broke it by saying, "I guess now is a good time to tell you the story."
"I'm listening," I told him as I gave him my undivided attention.
"Alright, so, it was freshman year. It was also about a month or so before we met." He began. "My depression, insomnia, anorexia, and anxiety were all weighing me down all at once and it was really overwhelming." I stayed quiet and allowed him to tell his story. "Then, one day, that fateful day... I did it. I tried to take my own life." He paused for a moment. "I remember it so vividly. I took a bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet along with a knife from the silverware drawer, went into the bathroom, and locked myself in there. Voices screamed in my head as I opened the pill bottle and poured all of its contents into my hand. 'Do it,' 'You're worthless and no one likes you,' 'You deserve to die...' all of those things kept repeating over and over again as I waited for the pills to finally take effect." He paused again. "Then, this one voice rang above all the others. 'You're so ugly. I bet you can't get any uglier.'" He paused yet again. "I don't really know why even to the day, but for some reason, I took this as a challenge. After I heard the voice, I stood up, looked in the mirror, and with a completely neutral look on my face as I did so, I picked up the knife and began creating the scars that you see right now. The funny thing is... I didn't even wince or cry while I was doing this. Even as quite a lot of blood poured from all of the cuts, I just stared in the mirror with a blank expression. Well, I did until all of the pills finally kicked it and I collapsed on the floor." He started running his fingers through his hair. "The last thing I remember is waking up in the hospital with my mother, the one who adopted me, of course, standing over me. She hugged me tighter than she's ever had in my entire life when I woke up that day. She kept saying how thankful she was that I was okay and how I had scared her to death. I didn't say anything; I just let her hug me and say her peace." He continued running his fingers through his hair. "I'll be completely honest with you. Up until a couple of months after we met, I was so angry that I didn't die that day. I felt like I didn't have a purpose in this world until you came along. You came along and showed me that I do, in fact, have a purpose, and I really can't thank you enough for that."
"You're welcome." I couldn't help but smile. I had unintentionally saved a life, but not just any life. This was the life of a person that I loved dearly.
"So yeah, that's the story." Lucas shrugged as he finished telling me what he had promised to tell me back at Dad and Papa's house. "And you obviously know the story behind the second tie that I tried to take my life, so I won't recount it."
"Yeah, let's not." I agreed as I rested my head on his arm since I couldn't quite reach his shoulders. "I'm just really glad that you're here and I get to call you mine."
"No, I'm glad that you're here and that I get to call you mine," Lucas replied as he wrapped his arm around me with ease. He then laughed. "I love you."
"I love you too." I puckered my lips as I said this, indicating that I wanted a kiss.
Lucas happily obliged and leaned down and kissed me on the lips for a few seconds.
I giggled as I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my phone, which had my earbuds attached to it. I set my phone down on my lap as I quickly unraveled the earbuds and held one out towards Lucas.
"Wanna listen to our playlist with me?"
"Of course." He smiled as he took the earbud from my hand and placed it into his ear.
I smiled back as I put the playlist on shuffle play before I put my phone back onto my lap and snuggled up to him.

*****

Upon arriving back to UNCSA, Lucas and I were both wide awake because of it being five hours earlier than we got used to it being and because of the fact that we had both slept through most of the flight.
"Hey, is it cool if I drop my stuff at my dorm and then come back to yours so that we can hang out?" He asked.
"Yeah, of course," I replied. "See you in a little bit."

I heard a knock on the door about ten minutes later. Knowing that it was Lucas, I called for him to come in since the door was unlocked.
"Hey." He greeted me as he stepped inside and closed and locked the door behind him.
"Hi." I greeted back as he walked over to my bed and sat down next to me.
Suddenly, he began blushing madly as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Hey, so, you know how we haven't... you know... since I wasn't ready to... do that?"
"Yeah." I could feel myself start to blush as well. "Why?"
"Well..." He trailed off as his face turned as red as a tomato. "I'm ready."
"Really?" I could feel just how hot my face was and I was imagining my face being as red as Lucas's.
"Yes." He nodded as he smiled excitedly.
I smirked at him as I scooted back so that my head was now laying on one of my pillows. "Come here then."
Without a moment's hesitation, Lucas crawled on over to me so that he was on top of me. He then proceeded to kiss me more passionately than he'd ever kissed me before. I happily kissed him back and wrapped my arms around his neck, ready for what was in store for the near future.

*****

Later on that night, Lucas and I held each other closer and tighter than we've ever held each other before. I could feel the warmth of his body transferring onto mine and the oxygen he was exhaling every few seconds hitting my shoulder. I smiled the brightest that I've ever smiled as sweet content washed over me. I then proceeded to gently kiss Lucas on the forehead, close my eyes, and begin drifting off to sleep. After what we had done tonight, I felt one-hundred confident when I said that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the man that I've been calling mine for nearly two years.

~~~~~