Chapter Text
"Kenny," said Rosie, a little sleepily and without quite the desirable amount of discretion, "I think you should see a therapist."
Kenny blinked, a little startled but not exactly insulted: it was just like Rosie to say something of this nature as matter-of-factly as if she were reading the weather report, and no malice was intended. "Oh, really," she said, dryly, when she'd recovered. "And what do you think I should talk about?"
Rosie shrugged, sucked on the inside of her cheek. "I don't know. I just think you have depression, to be honest."
They were travelling home from work together; Kenny had acquired a summer job working in the kitchens at a restaurant where Rosie waited tables. Kenny's legs ached from standing and Rosie's face ached from smiling. Neither girl was in the mood to treat any subject with the gravity it was owed...so, of course, now was the perfect time to breach serious topics.
"Enlighten me, then," said Kenny, nudging her friend's ankle with the heel of her trainer. "What symptoms of depression do I exhibit?"
"You sleep a lot," Rosie observed. "And you never really cry about things. Even when awful shit happens."
"Well. You have depression for real, and you never sleep and you're always crying, so what gives?"
"It can manifest both ways."
"And 'awful shit'? What 'awful shit' has happened to me, Rosie?"
"Um." Rosie shifted in her seat. "Your exams...your exams didn't go so well."
"That happens to everyone."
"And your best friend kind of broke your heart."
A small tension rose and then dissipated with Kenny's laugh, awkward but determined. "That was years ago. Anyway, you're my best friend now and you haven't broken my heart." She paused. "No offence. You're just not my type."
"And you're not mine, either," said Rosie lightly, smiling. "Anyway, don't change the subject. I just...I don't know. You don't seem happy these days. I want you to be happy."
"I'm eighteen," said Kenny. "Nobody's happy at eighteen. I'll be fine. But thanks for the concern." She leant against Rosie's shoulder and looked at her phone screen. "Is that Fliss?"
"Yeah. She's dating some French girl she went to boarding school with. They just became facebook official."
"Isn't that her third girlfriend this year?"
"Fourth."
"That girl is ridiculous."
"She really is." Rosie shook her head. "Bless her heart."
"I haven't actually talked to her in like...a year. At least."
"Me neither."
They were quiet, solemn, for the rest of the bus journey. Rosie's stop came before Kenny's and the latter sat still with her thoughts for a moment before getting her phone out and putting her headphones in. She hadn't listened to one song before it ran out of battery and turned itself off.
So she was left, once more, to thinking, which had never been her strong suit. Then again, she didn't exactly have many other hobbies anymore. Football was a thing of the past: she'd quit her school team in Year Nine after The Incident, and hadn't bothered to join the college team. It didn't look like she was going to be a doctor anymore, either, so there was little to work towards. 'The Sleepover Club' had fragmented as well, mostly due to the inevitable sort of drifting-apart that friendships tended to suffer from but partly due to a much sharper division. One Kenny knew was largely her own fault, albeit consequent of some things beyond her control, perhaps.
Kenny and Rosie had stuck together. They still occasionally talked to Lyndz, who would never have a bad bone with anybody, but she tended towards spending time with the girls at the stables, and was so preoccupied with her riding that her social life had long since fallen by the wayside anyway. Fliss mostly hung out with her friends at boarding school and rarely spoke to the other girls now, although she did post heartfelt birthday wishes on their facebook walls once a year. And then there was Frankie. Frankie, Kenny's first best friend. Now blocked on every social media platform. Now gone, it seemed, from her life. But not, of course, from everyone's: Frankie was popular, at least.
Whether or not said popularity was built on lies.
Kenny often wondered what the shape of their old group might have been if she, herself, had never been a part of it. Or even, sometimes, what might have happened had she never been born; if there was one thing Kenny felt she lacked nowadays, it was purpose.
Rosie, she felt, would name this as a symptom of depression. And so there were some things she kept to herself.
Keeping to herself might have solved a lot of problems. Come to think of it. And, of course, Kenny thought of it a lot. Especially these days.