Aimee.

 Hi. I'm Alice. I'm a normal 15 year old girl from a small village, near a small town, in nowhere special. I'm no one special, with nothing spectacularly special about me. However, Somehow in this small village where I live I have been lucky enough to meet someone very different to me, you see this person, this beautiful, strong, caring person, very unlike me, is special. In many ways some of us will never understand.

Some people need to take a step back from their lives every now and again and take on something called, perspective. Some girls wake up in the morning and struggle to get out of the house because they are so distraught that their curls will fall flat in the rain or some boys wake up and don't want to leave the house because their team lost at home the night before. But you see in the grand scheme of things this is nothing. Nothing at all. Because somewhere, maybe in a small village near a small town, someone else cant get themselves out of bed in the morning for a different reason, because they are so frightened of what could happen outside the safety of their home, a look, a comment, having to read something out in front of a class and maybe making a mistake, having to be put in pairs in class and realizing they don't have a partner, because it doesn't just stop there, its not just not having someone to work with, its loneliness, its isolation, its suddenly all their fault. Everything suddenly is.

Now I have no idea how this feels because you see I'm not writing about me. I'm writing about someone who is special.

I have watched someone have to face things that some people would never even dream of in maybe, 20,30,40 years of living. Watch someone dislike themselves so much that they begin to think that everything is their fault, that there is no help out there, that they have no one to turn to and are completely excluded, their confidence, self belief and strength is lost. They spiral into a deep dark hole and as they try to claw their way out they cant, they cant find the strength. So they fall, and they keep falling until they hit the bottom, but the worse thing is sometimes no one realizes, no one notices, the smile they paint on their face every morning that hides everything has finally done its job, its fooled everyone, no one cares enough to help until sometimes its just too late.

Now facing this every day might seem too much for some people, some people wouldn't fight back, they would just end it. But not her.

Its hard to watch someone feel like this and sometimes, yeah, you feel helpless, like no matter what you do they are just not going to get better, but what some people don't understand is that you don't need to try and get into their head, you don't need to try and fix every last deep, inner feeling this person may have. You simply just need to be there, be a shoulder to cry on, be the one they can talk to, text, call whenever they need the reassurance that you know what, despite what you may think there is someone here for you, someone who really truly cares. I cant lie, its hard, its tough and sometimes you feel like you may break too because its killing you to see them like this but its not about you. It has nothing to do with how you feel. Its about her.

To cut a long story (over 2 years to be precise) short, she didn't fall, like the rest, she didn't get caught in this hole and lose herself. She merely slipped. Momentarily. But she stood back up, brushed herself off and got on with it because truthfully, life is just too short. 

Many people will be very lucky to experience the feeling that I have every time I look at her. Pride. I am so proud that she was different. That she was special. That she was, is and will always be my best friend. That she is, just her, no matter what people say or what they think she knows that it doesn't matter, all that matters is that she is herself. Aimee. 

Alice x