People talk about it like it’s something you can just pick up, like it’s something you can just grab and wear. But “normal”—the way everyone’s supposed to be—what does that even look like? Is it the way people speak, dress, behave? The way they fit in with what everyone else is doing? Is it some made-up standard, some unwritten rule we’ve all agreed to live by? Maybe normal is just a bunch of expectations that we’ve all collectively agreed on without ever questioning whether we really have to follow them.

Trying to force yourself into someone else’s version of normal is futile. It’s like trying to make a tree grow sideways. It’s not meant to grow that way, and that’s okay.

What if normal is the thing that’s weird?

Maybe everyone is so busy trying to fit into some mold that they forget what it means to stand out. To be the version of yourself that no one else can be.

Being different isn’t the problem. The problem is trying to change yourself to be like everyone else. To make yourself smaller so you can squeeze into a box that wasn’t made for you. And even then, when you manage to force yourself in, they say that you don’t quite fit in it.

So yeah, Tiffany said I was different. Maybe I was.

So why was my jaw still clenched? Why did the words still gnaw at me, making my skin itch and my thoughts spin?

I turned the page of my book, pretending to read, pretending I wasn’t listening to the conversation happening just a few tables away. Tiffany’s voice drifted over, amused and casual.

“Are you seriously mad at me right now?” she asked.

“I’m not mad,” Beverly answered, but I could hear the edge in her voice.

“You totally are.”

A pause.

Then, softer, but firm, “I just don’t like when people talk about him like that.”

I felt something in my chest tighten, but I didn’t know if it was relief or guilt. Would she always be like this? Always quick to defend me, always ready to go to war for me if she had to, even when I didn’t ask her to? I didn’t want her to.

I didn’t want her fighting my battles. Not over this.

I turned another page.

Didn’t read a single word.

Tiffany laughed. “Relax, I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

A scoff. “There isn’t a good way to mean it.”

Tiffany didn’t respond right away. When she did, her voice was lower, less certain. “I don’t get you sometimes.”

I could imagine the look Beverly gave her, unimpressed and unyielding. “You don’t have to,” she said simply.

Another pause.

And then the subject changed.

I exhaled slowly, my grip on the book loosening.

She wasn’t sitting with me.