The bright line of well-off and super-rich we drew between us and Aunt Candy would be meaningless to her.

I’ve spent the last six years feeling, if not envious of Shola, something closely related to it, believing that things came so much more easily to her. Not money, of course, but everything else: talent, brains, joy, likeability. All the things nobody could buy for me. I bet Shola’s never once sat over a toilet and thought, Am I doing this right?

“That’s not fair. I loved your family. But you betrayed me. Do you even get that? Why I’d feel that way? Personally betrayed?” Shola asks, but it’s not a question. It’s a rebuke. And so I don’t say, Yes, yes, I get that, even though I do.

I listen, which is what Shola tried to teach me to do years ago when she told me I needed to examine my white privilege. To be an ally you need to be a better listener, she’d said. I had been too shy to say I don’t even know what an ally is. Later, I looked it up on Google.

“Like didn’t you guys realize that you were obviously screwing over people like me who worked so much harder and had so much further to go and who had earned our spots? I think you did realize that but you didn’t care. You thought, I deserve this. I deserve everything. I deserve the whole world even at everyone else’s expense. But here’s the thing, Chloe: You don’t. You don’t deserve everything.”

The feelings of shame that I’ve been riding for weeks overtake me again. I start to shake with it.

“I don’t know what you knew or didn’t know, and this is the tip of the iceberg, but it’s clear you knew this part: ADHD and extra time on the SAT? Seriously, Chloe? We once played Xbox for ten hours straight. You do not have ADHD.” Shola slaps her hands on the counter, and the sound reverberates through the house.

“I know.” I keep my voice small, because I am small. I should be folded up and recycled. Come back as something more useful.

“And because of you, it’s going to be harder for people who legitimately have a disability—”

“I know.” I hold her eye contact, even though I’m crying openly and want nothing more than to disappear, to run away, to leave the rest of her words unheard.

I will stand here and hear her. I do not need to make this easy on myself.

Easy, it turns out, gets you nowhere.

Easy, it turns out, gets you facing a felony charge.