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WHEN IN DOUBT, HIT THE BOOKS

Hugh

MARCH 31, 1999

I HAD LEFT O LD H ALL H OUSE THAT NIGHT WITH MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS . Despite my pleading, Catherine, Mike, and Mam continued to wrap me up in cotton wool, unwilling to consider the prospect that a “kid” might be capable of helping. Yeah, I didn’t take that lying down and decided there and then if they wouldn’t explain what was happening to Liz, I would figure it out myself.

Taking matters into my own hands, I hit the public library after school the following day. Scouring the nonfiction section, I combed through every medical textbook I could get my hands on. Because my membership stated I was under sixteen, I wasn’t permitted to take any of the medical textbooks home. Therefore, I returned to the library after swim practice and rugby training the following weekend, where I photocopied every passage correlating to early-onset bipolar.

The book that served my interest best was the one labeled Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . Within the pages of that particular dust-ridden hardback, I learned more about the human mind than I ever had in Mr. Coulson’s classroom at Scoil Eoin and quickly developed my own theories about the problems in my best friend’s mind.

Determined to prove to my best friend that I had no intention of disappearing from her life, I got off the school bus at her stop every day to visit with her. This small act won me brownie points with her parents, but I didn’t care about that. While it was nice that Catherine and Mike were warming up to the idea that Liz could have friends who knew about her illness and didn’t bolt, my visits weren’t for their benefit.

I was solely focused on their daughter.

The first three visits consisted of just hugging my friend and whispering words of reassurance in her ear, as she cried on my shoulder.

On the fourth visit, she smiled.

During the fifth and sixth visits, we played cards.

She slept through visits seven and eight.

By the ninth visit, she was out of bed and dressed.

Visits ten, eleven, and twelve were spent outside, rambling through the fields and holding down a one-way conversation.

Today marked visit thirteen, and when I climbed off the bus, I was surprised to find her waiting for me at the gates of her family’s estate.

“Are my eyes deceiving me, or is that Lizzie Young I see?” I called out when I spied her leaning against the metal gates.

Lizzie laughed and I swear, it was the best sound I’d ever heard. She raised her hand to wave and called out “hey,” while I jogged the rest of the way.

“Well, shit, it is Lizzie Young,” I teased, slipping through the pedestrian gate. Letting my schoolbag fall from my shoulder, I fisted the front of her flannel shirt and pulled her in for a hug. “There’s my girl.”

“Yep.” Her arms came around my waist and she pressed her body to mine tightly. “Here I am.” And then she did something so incredibly Lizzie-like that I knew I had my friend back.

She sniffed me.