What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen

by Kate Fagan

This had become the cycle, the endless battle: like carrying a weight on her shoulders, then finally dropping to her knees because it was too much, then telling herself not to be weak, to get up as she always had, to find a way to keep moving forward. Then she would stand, tell herself she could handle this, and start walking again. Until, of course, she would again collapse beneath the weight.

Anticipation fuels optimism, at least temporarily. We tell ourselves that the current moment will not last forever, that the next moment will deliver us somewhere better. Of course, if that promise is repeatedly broken, if those next moments are never better, a kind of melancholy can set in: both our present and future seem tarnished.