The day after the club, Willow came to Kandi's place early. She sat on the bedroom floor while Kandi dug through a pile of laundry for a rehearsal outfit. Hello Kitty toys crowded every shelf. A rainbow banner sagged over the window. Willow picked at her sleeve and watched. "You always know what to wear," she said. "You always know everything." Kandi heard the trust in it. It felt like a hand pressing on her chest. Kandi pulled out the pink outfit she loved. A tube top, a puffy tutu, black tights printed with white bones. She changed fast and turned to the mirror. Then she stopped smiling. She spun once. The tutu flared and settled. Her eyes went to her stomach, her thighs, the way the top gripped her. Fat. The word came before she could block it. She sucked in her breath and hated herself for it. Then she looked at Willow in the mirror behind her. Willow's wrists were thin as pencils inside the bone hoodie. Willow, who froze at every meal. Willow, who was sick in a way that scared doctors. And some ugly part of Kandi wanted that thinness. Wanted the sickness. She felt shame flood her, hot and total. She wanted a body that was hurting Willow. She hated the wanting. She hated herself for hating it. Kandi's hands shook. She reached to pull the top off and hide. "You went away just now," Willow said quietly. "I saw it." Kandi froze, half-turned. The lie was ready. Totally. She opened her mouth for it. Instead she sat down on the laundry pile across from Willow. Her tiara slipped and she left it crooked. "I looked in the mirror," she said, "and I called myself fat." Her voice cracked. "And then I looked at you. And I wanted to be sick like you. I wanted it. That's how gross my brain is." The words hung there. Kandi waited for Willow to pull back. To lose the rock she leaned on. Willow didn't pull back. Her face did something complicated. "That's the anorexia talking," she said slowly. "I know that voice. I hear it every day." She scooted closer over the socks and shirts. "You're not gross. You're sick too. You just hid it better." Kandi started crying. Not the pretty kind. Willow took her hand. The thin wrist against Kandi's felt like nothing and everything. "You held me up so many times," Willow said. "Let me hold this part." Kandi nodded. The stone behind her ribs didn't vanish. But for the first time someone else could see it. And Willow was still here, holding her hand on the bedroom floor. They sat a long time. Then Willow said, "You have to tell someone real. A grown-up. I can't fix this alone, and neither can you." Kandi wiped her face and, slowly, she nodded.

The appointment card sat in Kandi's pocket for three days. It needed her mom's signature. That meant her mom needed the truth. Kandi practiced the words in her glittery bedroom, surrounded by Hello Kitty plushies and piles of laundry. She would stay calm. She would keep it small. She would not cry. She found her mother folding blouses at the kitchen table. Helena still wore her work blazer, gold earrings catching the light. She glanced at Kandi's neon hair and pink skirt, then looked back at the blouses. That look. The tired one Kandi had memorized. "I need you to sign something," Kandi said. She slid the card across the table. "It's for a doctor. A therapist." Helena read it once. She set it down like it was nothing. "You don't need this. You need to sleep more. Focus on school." "Mom, it's not about school." "Everyone is sad sometimes." Helena picked up another blouse. "I was sad. I worked. It passed." "It's not passing." Kandi's voice climbed. "I've been hiding it. For years." "Hiding what?" Helena's mouth tightened. "You dress like a child. People stare. Now you want a doctor to fix a mood?" Something cracked in Kandi's chest. The calm plan collapsed. "You don't see me," she said. Tears came fast and hot. "You never see me. I smile so you won't worry, and it's killing me." Helena stared, blouse frozen in her hands. "Kandi." "Please sign it. Please." Kandi was begging now, hands shaking. "I can't do this by myself anymore." Her mother opened her mouth to argue again. And Kandi did the thing she swore she never would. She grabbed her pink wig and pulled it off. Underneath, bald patches spread across her scalp. Thin spots where she had pulled her own hair out, strand by strand, for years. The wig dropped onto the laundry pile. Helena went silent. The blouse slipped from her fingers. "I do this," Kandi whispered. "When it gets bad. I can't stop. This is what's under the glitter, Mom. This is the real me." Helena stood slowly. She reached out, then stopped, her hand hovering near Kandi's head. Her stern face broke. "How long," she said. Not a question. A crack. "Since middle school." Helena sat back down hard. She was quiet a long time. When she spoke, her voice was small and fast, the way she got when things cost her. "My mother told me sadness was weakness. I believed her." She looked at the card. "I don't want you to believe me." She picked up a pen. Her hand trembled. She signed her name. "You'll go," Helena said. "I'll drive you." Kandi cried harder, but different now. Helena pulled her close, careful, one hand resting soft against the bare patches she had never seen. The secret was out. Her mother knew everything. And nothing between them would ever be hidden the same way again.

Two days after her mom signed the card, Kandi walked into the hospital to see Willow. She had rehearsed nothing this time. The lobby smelled like clean floors and something too sweet. She counted her steps to Willow's room, the way she used to count crates of anything to keep her hands still. Her wig itched. She did not scratch it. Willow lay propped against pillows. A thin tube ran under her nose and taped to her cheek. Her bone-print hoodie sat folded on the chair, and without it she looked smaller, all sharp wrists and pale skin. She turned her head slow when Kandi came in. "You came," Willow said. Flat, quiet, the way she always talked. "Of course I came." Kandi's voice broke on it. She saw the tube and the guilt swallowed her whole. "Willow, I did this. I broke the pact. I stopped eating and I didn't tell you, and then you—" She gestured at the machine beeping beside the bed. "You collapsed. That's on me." Willow watched her. She did not rush to fix it. "No," she said finally. "I stopped too. We both lied." Kandi sank into the chair, pushing the folded hoodie aside. She almost stopped there. Say sorry, get the band talk going, make Willow laugh. The old script. But Willow was fragile now, tube taped to her face, and the thing Kandi wanted most was to keep her safe by staying quiet. That was the trap. She had done it for years. It nearly killed them both. So she said the hard thing. "I have depression," Kandi said. "Not sad. Depression. For years. I hide it behind the glitter and the jokes." Her hands shook. She reached up and, before she could stop herself, lifted the front of her pink wig. Underneath, the bald patches showed. "And I do this. I pull my own hair out. When it gets bad. It's called trichotillomania." Willow's dark eyes went to the patches. She did not flinch or look away. "I started therapy," Kandi went on. "My mom drives me now. I'm getting help. I wanted you to know before I dumped it on you. I know you're weak right now. I almost didn't say anything." "Don't do that," Willow said. "Protecting me. It's why we're both here." She lifted one hand off the blanket, slow, and set it on Kandi's arm. "I already knew you were hurting. I've known since the club. I just waited for you to say it." Kandi cried then, but she let Willow see it. No smile pasted over the top. "New pact," Willow said. "We tell each other the truth. Both of us. Even the ugly part." "Even the ugly part," Kandi said. She fixed her wig and stayed until visiting hours ended. She had told her closest friend everything and Willow was still holding her arm. The bond held. It just wasn't built on secrets anymore.

Two days after the treehouse, Willow came over to raid Kandi's closet. They needed stage looks for the show. Kandi's room glittered with piled clothes and Hello Kitty everything. She held up the rainbow hoodie, then a skirt, snapping fast jokes to keep the mood up. Willow tried on a bone-white tee and studied herself in the mirror. "You always know what works," she said. "You just hold it together. I don't know how." Kandi laughed it off, but the words landed wrong. Willow said them a lot now. Ever since the hospital, she looked at Kandi like a wall that couldn't fall. The strong one. The fixer. Kandi wanted to argue, but every time she opened her mouth, she pictured Willow's face changing. If the wall wasn't real, what did Willow have to lean on? So she kept smiling and passed her another shirt. "You're the strongest person I know," Willow said, quiet. "Thanks for being that." Kandi's throat closed. She almost said it's nothing again. Then the door banged open. Mia ran in, brown hair flying, still half in a cosplay skirt. She thrust a white pill bottle into Kandi's hand. "Mommy said it's TIME! Your medicine! She said DON'T forget again!" She spun and bolted back out, already yelling about her costume. The bottle sat in Kandi's palm. The label faced up. Prescribed to Kandi Katastrophe. Antidepressant. Take one pill by mouth daily. Kandi's whole body went stiff. She could hide it fast, shove it under a shirt, make a joke. Willow hadn't asked anything. She never would. But Willow was staring at the bottle. Her eyes moved across the label. She didn't speak. This was the moment. Kandi could keep the wall standing. Or she could show Willow the truth she kept skipping past. Her hand shook. She turned the bottle so the words faced Willow fully. "This is what strong looks like," Kandi said. Her voice cracked. "I take these so I can get out of bed. Some days I still can't. I'm not holding it together. I've just gotten good at making it look that way." Willow was quiet a long time. "I thought I was the broken one," she said. "And you were the one who never breaks." "There's no one who never breaks," Kandi said. "I lied without saying anything. I let you believe it." Willow sat down on the pile of clothes. She reached over and touched the bottle, then Kandi's hand. "I don't need you to be a wall," she said. "I just need you to be honest. Same as me." Kandi breathed out. The image shattered, and Willow was still there. But something new pressed in. If she could show Willow the truth in a quiet room, the show was tomorrow. Wig or no wig, honest or hidden, everyone would be watching. And Willow would be onstage beside her, expecting the real Kandi now.