Twelve years.
It had been twelve years since that day in kindergarten, the day that had changed Lisa Loud's life forever.
The day she'd made her first friend.
So much had happened in those twelve years, to Lisa, to her family, to her friends... most of it good, some of it bad. Lisa had seen friends come and go, had seen all nine of her older siblings graduate from high school, had seen seven of them graduate from college... but through it all, she'd kept her very close friend by her side, and now, as they got ready to graduate together, the two of them were by each other's sides once again as they stood backstage in the Royal Woods high school auditorium, each of them ready to give a speech.
Lisa Loud was the valedictorian of Royal Woods High School. It had been, like most other academic pursuits, spectacularly easy for her, a far cry easier than the 58 Ph. D.s she'd already earned. Despite the fact that she'd been able to graduate college at just 22 months old, her parents had insisted, and she'd reluctantly agreed, to attend a regular K-12 school as well. It would give her "social experience", they'd said, experience Lisa would need in her academic endeavors, despite her repeated insistence to the contrary.
They were, Lisa found herself thinking all these years later, absolutely right.
Lisa was no social butterfly, now or at any point in her academic career. She was still socially awkward, still spoke in complicated sentences, still had some trouble reacting to and understanding social and emotional nuances, and was far from the most popular senior at Royal Woods High. And yet, she was far more adept at any of these things than she had been back in kindergarten, when she'd first met...
Darcy Helmandollar.
"Lisa? Are you nervous?" asked Darcy, in the same friendly tone and with the same friendly smile she possessed when she and Lisa first met all the way back in kindergarten. "Think of it this way, at least you won't have to go first!"
Darcy Helmandollar was the salutatorian of Royal Woods High, in no small part thanks to the tutoring and encouragment and companionship she'd enjoyed from Lisa for the last twelve years. She would've done just fine in school without Lisa's help, but Lisa had taught her so many things about, well, pretty much everything, giving Darcy the equivalent of an education at Harvard, M.I.T., and Cambridge all rolled into one throughout the course of their countless interactions as best friends. The two had gone on many adventures together, which Lisa called "experimental excursions" and Darcy called "weird science trips", and Darcy had also spent plenty of time being Lisa's test subject, though she always loved helping Lisa out and nothing ever happened to her that Lisa wasn't eventually able to undo. Of course, Darcy always made sure to repay Lisa's kindness with shopping sessions and fun makeovers, and even tried to set Lisa up with some of the hunkiest guys at Royal Woods High, one or two of whom Lisa actually found herself wanting to go on second dates with.
"Yes, I suppose that's true, but I have no doubt your salutatorian speech will be an extremely difficult one to follow," Lisa replied. She and Darcy stood together in their graduation caps and gowns, and Darcy could see Lisa's feet nervously shuffling back and forth. It's strange... I never have trouble speaking in front of crowds of my scientific peers, but I find my high school social peers far more challenging to address in public... and yet Darcy seems to talk with such enthusiasm and aplomb. I can understand the chemical reactions inside Darcy's brain that make her the way that she is, but I will never fully understand what truly gives her the courage to be the person she is. Just like I'll never understand why she chose to forgive me that day in kindergarten...
"Hey, it's okay to be nervous," said Darcy, reaching out a hand to touch Lisa on the shoulder. "Just speak from the heart, even if it's something you don't think they'll get. You don't need to inspire all of them, you already inspire me every day."
For a moment, Lisa felt all of her worries fade into the aether. Darcy's warm touch usually had that effect on her, and it made her forget what she'd been worrying about before.
"Thanks, Darcy," replied Lisa, showing a rare smile and softening her voice to express her genuine gratitude. "Do I look all right? I tried to make myself look professional and attractive, but I'm not sure that will help me with the actual words of my speech..."
Darcy couldn't help but giggle for just a moment, but stifled it with her hand so as not to make Lisa feel uncomfortable.
"Lisa, you look just fine," said Darcy, turning her friend to face a nearby mirror. At 17, Lisa looked like a normal teenage girl, with a figure much like the one her sister Lori had back at that age. She'd grown out her brown hair, and though it was still a bit messy, it was mostly straight and shimmered just a bit under the stage lights thanks to the hairspray Darcy had helped her apply earlier that evening. It was her natural hair, too, as Lisa had invented a way to regrow it quickly after losing it in science experiments. She'd had yet to cure cancer (though she'd set a goal to do it before reaching her 21st birthday), but the hair regrowth technique had helped countless chemo patients, one of the many helpful breakthroughs that had helped to make Lisa Loud the most lauded scientist in the world, even if she probably wasn't even one of the 100 most popular graduating seniors at Royal Woods High.
"Yes, but... admittedly, my looks are quite inadequate compared to yours," Lisa replied. In contrast with Lisa, Darcy Helmandollar had grown into one of the prettiest girls at Royal Woods High. She was tall (three inches taller than Lisa), fit, and gorgeous, with full, flowing brown hair and a smile that could light up a room. She was one of the most popular girls in school, and would probably have been the most popular outright if it wasn't for her friendship with Lisa Loud. In fact, Darcy was kind to just about everyone, even if her kindness to people on the bottom rungs of the social ladder earned her enemies at the top of it. She made friends with all sorts of people, no matter who they were, and her kindness had certainly won over many of the popular girls who'd initially scorned her efforts to befriend outcasts and bullied kids, though there were still a few who would always shun her due to who she chose to associate herself with.
But no matter how many friends made, her closest friend after all those years was still Lisa.
"You're beautiful," said Darcy, "and don't let anyone ever tell you you're not."
The two could hear the school's concert choir performing the second of their four musical numbers on stage. After the choir finished, it would be Darcy's turn to give her salutatorian speech, and then Lisa's turn to speak. The friends still had some time to hang out together, and Lisa could feel the worries returning to her. Her mind had a tendency to drift toward troublesome scenarios, a tendency that only increased as Lisa faced the social pressures of high school. Combined with an eidetic memory that enabled her to remember all of the embarrassing and shameful things she'd done or said in her life, and she couldn't help but feel a sense of dread manifest itself whenever Darcy was being nice to her... which, considering the kind of person Darcy was and considering the fact that they were best friends, was literally every moment the two of them spent together.
"You're right, Darcy," said Lisa, "though at the risk of sounding as if I am bragging about my appearance, I will still maintain my opinion that you are the more attractive of the two of us."
"If you say so," replied Darcy with a giggle, turning away from the mirror and toward the stage door. "To be honest, I'm actually pretty nervous myself... I never imagined I'd end up salutatorian, it's a really big honor, you know?"
In another time, Lisa would have corrected Darcy and would have pointed out that being valedictorian was the greater honor. But Darcy had helped to teach Lisa humility about her accomplishments, and had also helped Lisa to put those accomplishments in perspective.
"It's a well-deserved honor, Darcy. You've labored harder than anyone else I know to achieve those grades. Even with my tutelage, you could not have achieved a perfect 5 on the AP Calculus exam without extensive study and countless hours of sweat equity. In layman's terms, you worked your ass off for it."
Darcy smirked, imagining the surprise one of their teachers might have at hearing Lisa swearing, even though she knew that in private Lisa could have quite the potty mouth thanks to her extensive hip hop listening. The number of times Lisa muttered a swear after an unexpected explosion or failed experiment might have even made Tupac blush.
"I guess so, I just hope my speech holds a candle to yours," Darcy said. "I kinda feel like I'm just the warm-up for you. But that's okay... it's not every day someone gets to be the opening speaker for the woman who's going to change the world as much as you will."
"If anyone's going to change the world, it'll be you, Darcy," Lisa quickly replied. "I mean, you've been accepted into Richford's international diplomacy program, where the world leaders of the future are trained!"
"And you're going to M.I.T.," said Darcy, playfully elbowing her friend. "How's it feel, Professor Loud?"
After graduating high school, Lisa's time as a student was finished. Starting in the fall, she'd be teaching quantum physics, molecular biochemistry, and introduction to interdimensional travel at one of the world's most prestigious universities. She would miss Darcy, though she was hoping to construct a portal that would allow her to simply walk from her apartment in Boston to Darcy's dorm room in Palo Alto. It'd be her summer project, something to keep her busy in her last summer before the beginning of what she hoped would be the greatest scientific career of all time.
"It feels... it feels..."
Lisa groaned, an old memory returning to her from twelve years ago. It was the first week she and Darcy had spent as friends, though at that time, only Darcy actually considered the two of them to be friends, while Lisa had simply been using Darcy to avoid getting a failing grade from her kindergarten teacher. That moment, when she'd finally admitted that she didn't really want to be friends with Darcy, and Darcy's subsequent heartbroken reaction... for twelve years, that single moment had stuck in Lisa's mind.
"Lisa?"
Lisa could see the look of Darcy's kind concern reflected in the mirror, and imagined that same face, twelve years ago, contorted in anguish.
"What's wrong? Did some of the concentrated acid get in your eye?"
"NO! You hurt my feelings!"
Twelve years later, Lisa still remembered, with complete accuracy, the sound of Darcy crying at that exact moment.
What if she'd never forgiven me? What if she'd never forgiven me? What if she'd never forgiven me?
Lisa wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. She bit her lip and tried to force that memory away.
What if she'd never forgiven me?
"Do you forgive me?" Lisa stammered out, looking over her shoulder at Darcy.
"Lisa..."
This wasn't the first time Lisa had felt this way. Or the second, or the third, or the fifth, or the tenth...
"I'm sorry...!" Lisa blurted out, apologizing not for hurting Darcy's feelings twelve years ago, but for flashing back to it for what must have been the hundredth or two-hundredth or three-hundredth time. Every single time Lisa had brought it up, Darcy had reassured her that yes, they were still best friends, and yes, Darcy forgave her for being a false friend all those years ago.
I must be driving her crazy to keep bringing it up...! She must think I'M crazy! She shouldn't have to reassure me so much... I shouldn't be making her feel guilty for a reaction that was completely justified. I hurt her so much... she had every right to tell me how she felt. Why am I doing this? Why can't I stop thinking about it? Why am I thinking about it now?
The tears began flowing from Lisa's eyes from behind her thick glasses, and they didn't stop. They couldn't stop. And instantly, Darcy was hugging her.
"It's okay, Lisa..."
"I don't know why I can't stop bringing it up...! I know you've forgiven me, I know we've been best friends the entire time we've been in school together, but I can't stop thinking about what would have happened if you'd never forgiven me! If I never had you as a friend, if I ever lost you as a friend...!"
Lisa rarely, if ever showed emotion. As she'd gotten older, as she'd come to experience and learn about social and emotional nuances, she'd expressed it more than she had as a stoic four year old, but she was still far less prone to fits of crying than any of her friends. Darcy still cried on a regular basis, usually when she saw something that moved her to sadness or joy, like a tragic movie or a story about a lost puppy finding its owner, moments that moved Lisa as well, but far less visibly.
And yet, whenever Lisa thought about losing Darcy as a friend, the tears usually came quickly to the surface.
And every single time, Darcy understood completely.
"You'll never lose me, Lisa..." said Darcy, in a patient, empathic tone, holding her friend close and letting her cry into her chest.
"I shouldn't be this way..." Lisa replied through her sobs. "I sound so... so emotionally dependent... it's... unbecoming..."
"We all need someone, Lisa... it just takes some of us longer to realize that."
In the years that Darcy had known Lisa, she'd gotten to understand just what made her remarkable friend tick. She came to understand that Lisa had trouble expressing her emotions and forming personal attachments the same way that others did, that her mind, while incredibly gifted in academic areas, filtered everything else out in a way that sometimes obscured interpersonal feelings. And yet... Lisa was no less capable than anyone else of experiencing those feelings, and expressing them just as she was doing now.
"Why did it take me too long to realize how kind you were being to me until I hurt you?" Lisa asked, as Darcy gently wiped her hand under Lisa's runny nose.
"You didn't hurt me," said Darcy.
"But I did!"
"Listen to me," said Darcy, sternly but still gently, placing her hands on Lisa's shoulders and looking directly into her eyes. "You didn't hurt me. You can't hurt me. You are incapable of hurting me. You are my best friend and nothing will ever change that. Nothing in the past, and nothing in the future."
Lisa stood speechless. She stopped crying, but her eyes were still wide and her expression still reflected the turmoil in her gifted mind.
"And yet... I know you're going to feel this way again, and that's okay too," said Darcy, her voice now finally softening. "I would never tell you what to feel... just... please don't dwell on it long enough to hurt your own feelings... and remember, I'm here if you need me and I always will be."
Lisa blinked, and more tears fell down the sides of her face. She sniffled, but her lips slowly curved into a smile. She took a deep breath, and felt a warmth in her chest and in her stomach.
Everything's going to be okay.
Lisa embraced Darcy again, and Darcy let Lisa hold her as long as she wanted to, both of them smiling as they held each other tightly.
"Feel better?" Darcy asked.
"I think so," Lisa replied.
"Enough to give your speech?"
"Certainly."
The choir had just finished performing their fourth and final song, and it was time for Darcy to take the stage to give her speech. She was about to step out when Lisa stopped her by gently taking her wrist.
"A moment, please?"
"Hmm?"
"You've been crying too... your makeup, it's..."
Lisa quickly went over to a nearby table where Darcy had set down her cosmetic supplies, and grabbed some foundation and eyeliner to touch up Darcy's makeup where she'd been crying.
"I hope I'm doing this properly..." said Lisa, quickly but correctly re-applying the makeup to Darcy's face. Darcy checked herself in the mirror and smiled.
"I've taught you well," Darcy replied, turning back toward Lisa, whose very mild makeup application hadn't suffered much despite the fact that she'd done significantly more crying. "Want me to come back and touch you up after my speech?"
"I believe I'll be fine," said Lisa, only half-heartedly checking herself but ultimately remaining quite satisfied with how she looked, still never one to care too much about her appearance. "But thank you for your generous offer."
Lisa watched as Darcy stepped out the stage door and onto the stage. Just a few minutes ago, she'd been sobbing uncontrollably, but now she couldn't wipe the smile from her face.
"Good luck, Darcy..." Lisa whispered.
Darcy's speech was just a few minutes long, filled with all the familiar tropes one might expect in a graduation speech. Be courageous, achieve your dreams, anything is possible... Darcy's speech covered all the standard talking points, though she was somewhat more sunny and encouraging than the average high school graduate, and her magnetic personality did well to captivate her audience and reiterate why she'd been so popular despite constantly hanging out with the biggest nerd in school.
She concluded her speech with a short tribute to her best friend, and Lisa couldn't help but be touched at just how highly Darcy spoke of her. Darcy made sure to thank her parents and family in her speech, but she attributed the largest portion of her success in life thus far to the friendship she had with Lisa Loud... and Lisa could hear the emotion in Darcy's words as she concluded.
"And even though Lisa is, without a doubt, the best tutor on the planet, that's not why I was able to become salutatorian. Lisa gave me something else when she gave me the gift of her friendship. She encouraged me. She gave me the strength I needed to see something greater in myself. She helped me try new things, she helped me find my passions in life, and she continues to do that every single day. And that's what we all need to do... help each other to find our truest selves. I've made it my mission in life to help every single person I meet reach their fullest potential, just like Lisa continues to do for me. I hope each and every one of you here has that one person that helps you achieve your goals, because while we all have to work hard to get what we want and need out of life, no one gets there without a little help from their friends. Let's all go out there and bring the best out of each other. Thank you, and congratulations Royal Woods High Class Of 2029!"
The crowd cheered, Darcy hugged the principal, and Lisa shed another tear.
Then, Darcy went backstage again to give Lisa another chance to have her face touched up. Instead, Lisa gave her a big hug and another unsure look.
"There's no way I'll be able to follow that."
"Try," said Darcy.
"I..."
"Or maybe we'll just stay back here and have a TICKLE FIGHT!"
Lisa knew what was coming, and though she'd normally try to shrink away from Darcy's skillful fingers, this time around she decided that a little laughter would do her some good. Darcy's fingers probed Lisa's ribs and belly, and even through the graduation gown and the sweater Lisa was wearing underneath, it was still more than enough to force a giggle out of the young genius.
"All right, all right...! At least you didn't bring Rafo this time..."
"He's still sitting in my bed waiting for me to come home."
"That stuffed giraffe of yours has an astonishing level of resistance to survive thirteen years of constant cuddling and-"
Darcy gently took Lisa by the shoulders and turned her toward the stage door.
"You'll do great."
By the time Lisa was out the door and walking toward the podium, she wasn't so sure. She took one last look toward Darcy...
Everything's going to be okay.
Lisa could hear the applause as she got behind the podium. It wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as the applause for Darcy, but she spotted a few friends in the crowd, and could see her parents and siblings (and her sister Lori's husband Bobby, their two kids, Leni's husband Chaz, Luna's wife Sam, and Lincoln's fiance Ronnie Anne) cheering wildly for her.
And really... my family's applause is all I truly needed.
Lisa felt like smiling, but didn't smile as her speech began.
"I know that all of you are expecting a very boring speech from me on this occasion, discussing academic pursuits and encouraging all of you to make wise college choices. I was going to discuss the many opportunities available to all of you in the various STEM disciplines, but..."
Lisa paused, gauging the crowd's reaction. While many of her fellow graduates were paying attention, quite a few of them, including the popular girls who'd shunned Darcy for befriending her, were either looking away or texting, or both.
"But I will not punish those of you still paying attention by discussing something that you have already devoted quite a bit of time to, and I know the people who aren't paying attention would gain no benefit from what I would have said regardless. I have an intelligence quotient of 675. I am not bragging about it, it is a scientific fact confirmed through a battery of mental, psychological, and physical tests. There is no one else in the world whose IQ is even a third of that. And yet... I am no better a person than anyone else in this room. No matter what your choice of study, or whether or not you choose to go to college at all, you have value as a human being who is, in some way or form, a friend to others. And that is the topic I have chosen to talk about today. It is, I concede, similar in subject matter to the topic that my best friend Darcy Helmandollar spoke of just a few minutes ago, but I will attempt to differentiate my speech from her excellent speech by discussing my personal experience with friendship, which saved my life in a way I could never have imagined on that day twelve years ago when I became friends with Darcy. I do not believe in angels, despite the continued efforts of this school's religious organizations to convince me of their existence. The only person who has ever come close to convincing me of the existence of angels is Darcy, because her friendship with me, a gift I can never come close to repaying, supports the hypothesis that she herself happens to be one."
Lisa spent the next several minutes talking about her friendship with Darcy and how much it enriched her life. She talked about their first week together, when Lisa believed she'd never be accepted onto the interplanetary council, and Darcy, through the gift of a chocolate chip cookie, made Lisa realize that she had something that meant even more: a friend. She talked about their time in elementary school, and middle school, and finally in high school, about the times when she'd been ruthlessly bullied, and how Darcy never, not even once, failed to speak up for Lisa and tell off the bullies. The theme of Lisa's speech was indeed quite similar to Darcy's, but where Darcy's speech told the listeners to be a friend and help lift each other up, Lisa's speech told listeners to find a friend, that everyone needs one no matter how devoted to other pursuits they might be.
"I haven't had a normal life. I wouldn't want one. I'm proud of my scientific achievements and hope to make countless more over the course of my life, which I expect to be an extremely long one thanks to the experimental longevity treatments I've already begun applying to myself. But those achievements would have felt hollow without someone to lift me up and encourage me. I do have my family, and they've always encouraged me. But I also needed a friend, and so does everyone else here in this room. I truly and sincerely hope that all of you can find a friend who will be as good to you as Darcy has been to me. I learned from her the most important thing that I've ever learned when she gave me that cookie twelve years ago... when she encouraged me, when she made me happy again in the depths of my despair... I asked her why she wanted to make me feel better, and she told me that's what friends do for each other. And what I learned, and what I want all of you to take away from what I've told you, is that friends make your life better."
"Friends make your life better," Darcy said at the exact same time, smiling from ear to ear. I've never forgotten that day either.
The crowd erupted into applause, standing up and cheering for Lisa's speech. As Lisa started to come down from behind the podium, Darcy walked back out onto the stage and immediately went for a hug, which Lisa eagerly received. The two friends embraced and the cheers grew even louder.
"I love you so much," Lisa whispered, holding Darcy as tightly as she could.
"Love you too, Lisa," Darcy whispered back, her embrace as warm as the stars in Lisa's astronomical charts.
The two reached up to their graduation caps.
"CAP TWINS!" the two girls shouted together, starting to throw their caps before their principal got up and gently stopped them.
"You don't throw those until after you get your diplomas," she reminded them both, prompting the two girls to blush and giggle as they turned away from her and made their way off the stage and back to their seats. The two sat down in their assigned seats in the crowd, Lisa a few rows back from Darcy, but continued to wave to each other as the next part of the ceremony began.
This was the first day of the rest of their lives, lives they hoped to spend as best friends forever. And though Lisa would still have doubts and worries, she knew that in the end, everything would be okay.
Whether or not I cure cancer, or make it onto the interplanetary council, or whatever else I achieve in my life, I'm still Lisa Loud and I have a wonderful, amazing, incomparably magnificent best friend.
Her life was good, and Darcy Helmandollar made it better.