Part I
Zada had always thought that her name was ironic. Its literal meaning was "the lucky one". Zada was not lucky. Sure, she was pretty enough, she had great friends and a good family, but she was sick. She was very sick, and she had been that way for a long time. Very few people knew that she was sick. Every so often she would spend a weekend in the hospital, and then tell her friends the next week that she'd been out of town visiting family. Zada didn't want her friends to know she was sick. Her relatives didn't even know. Her illness was kept a secret because after she'd been diagnosed, Zada quickly realized that people treat you very different when they know that you're sick. Her family now tried to shelter her, and it seemed to Zada that they handled her like a glass ornament likely to shatter at any moment. At home, Zada couldn't be herself. She had to be careful, and everyone around her was careful. But when she was with her friends, it was a whole different story.
When Zada was with her friends, she could be wild, dangerous and herself! There was nobody telling her to slow down, take it easy or rest for a while. Nobody knew that she was ill, and she loved it. It wasn't possible to tell that Zada was ill unless she forgot to take her medications or they just stopped working. The meds almost always worked, and Zada was extremely careful to take her pill every day at the right time. Everything was fine, and Zada was able to live her life like this until one Sunday she got sicker, and had to stay overnight in the hospital. One Tuesday she came to school to find that people had started guessing she was gone for being sick, and someone had found out she'd been in the hospital. So Zada admitted that she was sick, but only to a select few people. She also downsized her illness to make it sound like a tiny little stomach thing that she just had to take one little pill for. She wasn't lying; she just wasn't telling them the whole truth. If they knew everything her whole life would be changed. So her friends knew she was sick now, but they didn't know the true extent of her disease. This was fine for a while, until Zada slowly began to get sicker. The doctors upped her dosages, and sent her home. Now she still hangs out with her friends, she doesn't lie to them though. Zada had told them part of it when they did ask, but she decided if they asked, she wouldn't lie. If one of her friends came up to her and asked, "Zada, do you have a disease that will impair you for the rest of your life and considerably shorten it by 15-25 years? Does this disease also make it so you've got to get extremely in depth monthly check-ups and painful shots at every one? Do you have to be on medication every day of your life because of said illness?"
If somebody asked her that, then Zada would answer them with the whole entire truth. But so far nobody had, so she hadn't. Hopefully, nobody would.
Part II
Zada had noticed a change. The pills had stopped working, her symptoms were coming back and she felt like she had three years ago when she'd first been diagnosed. She felt like she was dying. They took her back to the hospital, and it was there that they told her the news.
They didn't know what was wrong with her. Apparently, they never had and they'd just put her on the best medications they could find. Those medications were wrong. The pill's Zada took every night, and the shots Zada received every month had slowly been breaking down her immune system, making her worse and the mystery disease even stronger. They gave her new medications, and injected different things into her body. She noticed that these shots hurt more than the old ones had. She had more pills. She noticed the new pills were bigger, and more varied colors than the old ones had been. They didn't make her feel any better, but Zada pretended that they did.
She didn't know how much longer she would have her life, but while she was still breathing she was determined to fully live and appreciate every moment she had. So it came to the point that she did have to lie. If people knew she was sick they would worry, hold her back, and treat her like she was fragile. Zada wouldn't be able to stand that. So when her friends began to wonder why she'd gotten so pale, why she'd lost weight, why she'd started eating noticeably less, she had to lie. She didn't say that her blood wasn't circulating as fast as it was meant to, she didn't say that her body couldn't absorb the nutrients it needed from food, and she didn't say that she could barely hold down the small amounts that she did eat. Above all, Zada especially didn't tell them that she might not be around next year. She made sure that she never even hinted at the fact that she was slowly wasting away.
Zada was the girl who was beautiful.
She was the girl who was smart.
She was the girl with good friends.
She was the girl who was skinny.
She was the girl who was pale.
She was the girl who bent the truth like a rule, and justified it.
She was the girl who'd lied to save herself and protect those she loved.
She was the girl who didn't know what was happening to her.
She was the girl who just wanted to be happy for once.
She was the girl who was going to die.
