The Best Friend

I have known her since forever. She has never liked the name her parents gave her and preferred to be called Lydia. We used to do everything together-play, homework, going on hikes, you name it. Life seemed like a scene from a Hollywood movie, but i know nothing will ever tear us apart. We were Best Friends Forever. Lydia and I.
My classmates were very friendly in the beginning. I was very excited to get to know them, to have more friends to play Tag with. Lydia warned me to not trust them, to maintain my distance; but i managed to convince her to give them a chance and boy, was i wrong!
I thought they would like Lydia, there is nothing to "not like" about her.
I still remember the looks on their face when i introduced them to her. That was the last day any of them even smiled at me. Lydia gave me the "i told u so" look and it bothered me a lot, I could not come up with one good reason why they would not talk to me.
Lydia taught me to not care about them. She said they dont deserve it. She was my only friend from then on, we would sit in the corner of the class, next to each other and draw pictures of all the other girls in class being run over by a bus. These drawings used to make us very pleased with ourselves and i had to hide all the drawings in my closet after i got home; i had not told my parents about Lydia and did not intend to tell them either because they would break our friendship- they dint like to see my happy.
Lydia grew up to be the prettiest girl is school. She was a little haughty, but that could be ignored. We were in high school now and we continued to be inseperable, time spent in the playgrounds were replaced with going to malls and reading Cosmo. Life could not have gotten better than this. Not even if i had a hundred friends.
As time passed by, Lydia started talking strange. She would keep to herself and refuse to tell me what was bothering her. She said she does not want my help. I was worried. This one time, she said she wants to talk to Mary-Ann, she said she was the only one who could help her. Lydia and i know no Mary-Ann. When i pointed this out to her, Lyd went into denial. She started crying hysterically and told me she has never mentioned MA to me because she dint want us to know each other, she said MA is like her twin. That felt weird because all my life i believed that Lyd and i were twins. How could she have another twin, now?
That incident was the first of many. Lyd was never the same after that. I tried to talk to her about MA, tried to find out where she did her schooling and everything. On getting relevant information about MA, i tried to get in touch with her. Lyd claimed that all the pictures of hers and MA, when they went to the beach, mall, to Disney Land, were all with
MA herself. Strange. Lyd had spent every minute of her life with me but i dare not point this fact out to her. She was already hysteric, and i wanted to do something to help. A few phone calls later my assumption was right. There was no person named MA, inspite of Lyd being very fluent in giving me what she thought was MA's address and her university room number.
I was scared for Lyd. I talked her into going to see a Psychologist. She hesitated, said no one could help her but for MA. After days of constant pestering, she gave in. She had already started to look bad; swollen eyes from all the crying, unkempt hair which once was silky and straight and perfect. Miss Morgan was very nice to us. She spoke kindly, offered us cookies. We met her thrice every week and at the end of the 5th week, she told us its schizophrenia. That I am schizophrenic.