The Three Lives of Cate Kay

by Kate Fagan

What you need to know about me and Amanda is that no friendship like ours had ever existed. We basically redefined the medium, elevated it to an art form. Seriously, that’s how we felt. We were like all young people in that way, in full belief that we were revolutionizing the human experience. Those older models, all failures; let us show you how real living is done!

I was a professional overthinker, so it was a relief to have her beta-test life, work out the kinks before I arrived.

She was a confident person. But like all confident people, it was only about 87 percent authentic. Doubt just lived on the outskirts of town instead of in the center, like it does for everyone else.

Listening to my brain was exhausting. Only now do I question my brain’s wisdom, wonder if it’s actually working in my best interest. But back then? A thought was reality. And how do you tell your best friend that your brain imagines outgrowing them—that it’s not even a choice; it’s a necessity.

“It’s like… ummm… how do I explain this? It’s like you hold me steady, but without holding me still.”

And yet, as far as I could tell, being cool in high school was a death sentence. No pain to fuel you later.

Of course, most things in life are conveyed without using precision, which is why I loved books so much. The people in them were scared and rarely said what they meant, but the best authors used words like swords to slice through it all.

What many people don’t understand about serious injury or illness is that what you’re really coming to grips with isn’t the physical limitations (although there is that); it’s how the physical limitations alter your interactions with the world.

In my profession you learn that people are always building a web of lies around a kernel of truth and calling it honesty—it’s transparent.

Even as a kid my mom would stop people and say, “Oh, Sidney can figure it out on her own.” She was always telling people I was so competent she’d never have to worry about me. But sometimes it’s nice to be worried about.

“Amanda,” she said after a little while, and hearing that name and the way she said it—reverence is the word that comes to mind—I felt certain she was telling me something important.

“The trick of life, as I see it now, is to make what’s around you beautiful. It’ll grow from there. Took me a long time to see that.”

Broken things are beautiful. More beautiful in the end than perfect things, which are usually an illusion of some sort. I hoped I had given her a beautiful life.

“I’d tell her that only love will fill the black hole—that it’s the only thing worth chasing.”