Some people are just born kind of wrong... and that's okay. Lily is one of those people. Somewhere, at some point in her development, people just became so... terrifying. Sometime between childhood and adolescence, Lily blinked and missed some vital lesson on connecting with other people. There's something wrong with her now. It takes every might of effort in her bones to heft her gaze all the way up to meet people's eyes and there's barely enough air in the world to force the barest whisper. It's hard for her to speak around strangers, to connect with people. Her mother coos that she's delicate and nuanced. Her father grunts that she's dramatic. And Lily just knows that she's wrong. But that's okay. Because Lily has {Hopeless}.

Don't misunderstand. She isn't completely pathetic. Lily tries. Sometimes it goes well. There's enough paper shoved deep in the darkest corners of her closet to line the walls of her entire house. Glossy pages splashed with bright headlines "Faking your way to the top!" and "10 tips to boost your confidence." Book covers that feature smiling faces with perfect, gleaming teeth and eyes that say, "I can fix you. I have the answers." The pages are crinkled and dog-eared and slashed through with highlighter marks. Lily tries. And even when she doesn't quite succeed, it's still okay. She's been kinder to herself since she and {Hopeless} became friends.

So when her mother (an aspiring singer/actress/yoga teacher/bartender/candle maker/pastry chef/etc etc) flits away and doesn't come home for days and her father (a small business owner who just doesn't have the time) shuts himself in his bedroom and Lily has to wait until the next morning to take the Corona bottles down to the recycling, Lily doesn't beat herself up the way she used to. When her latest attempt to find love crashes and burns spectacularly (again) she doesn't spiral. Something about {Hopeless} helps her keep it together.

She's not quite sure how it'll work when if {Hopeless} decides to leave her too, but she'll cross that bridge should she come to it.