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by KELLY SHEA
FILLING EMPTY SPACES
 
For Brad and Jenn: wo amazing professors that have made me a better worker and taught me much, as well as opened the doors to some of my greatest opportunities so far. I am very indebted to each of you for believing in me.For Mom, who laughs with me like a sister and has been there without judgment through my ups and downs. For Dad, who reminds me that I am strong in weak moments, and has fully funded various vacations that I may not have deserved to take. For Robby, whose creativity, dry wit and old soul never fails to bring me joy.For Ashlee, the older sister I never had, who has been my most fiercely loyal friend despite the miles between us. Your open heart and unbreakable spirit have been an endless source of inspiration to me, and I am lucky to know you.For Jess, my first true lifelong friend: Tank you for welcoming me into a world that changed me forever. And finally, for anyone feeling trapped by othersexpectations: Don’t hesitate to shatter the pedestals built beneath you. Find your bliss and write your own damn story.
 
n a bleak night in May 2006, I opened my eyes to a pitch-black bed-room filled with silence. I strained to ocus on the numbers glow-ing rom my alarm clock: 10 p.m. Something elt wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be here.
Why am I in bed this early? onight was prom night.
 My stomach sank. As I clutched my pillow or support, the flashbacks crept up, each one worse than the last. In the dramatic ways that teenagers sometimes do, I realized that my lie was over. At least the lie I’d built so careully beore. I had almost made it through my junior year o high school, but aer this, things would never be the same. As I played the coming day in my head, I ell into despair. Haunted already, I cried mysel to sleep. * * *Four months earlier, I’d been lying on my best riend Anna’s bed looking through an old box o photographs. I giggled at the pictures o us rom just a ew years back. She was 50 pounds overweight, and I was resh out o a back brace. As I flipped through the pictures, Anna was at her desk, working her phone like a stockbroker, throwing glances my way between conversations to fill me in on party plans that really didn’t concern me at all. My stomach tightened when the doorbell rang. She ran downstairs to answer it with excited eyes, flying out o the room in a flash o shiny black hair. I heard her ootsteps returning and shoved the box o photographs in a drawer, earul that one o the guests might ask to browse through them. Since then, Anna had lost the weight and blossomed into a 17-year-old socialite. I’d lost the brace but hadn’t ound similar confidence.
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