We continue to walk in silence. It will be Passover in a few weeks, but the weather can’t decide if it is ready for spring yet. Honey has her ski jacket tied around her waist, and I have my windbreaker zipped up to my chin. We say goodbye when we get to my house and I turn to wave from my front door because I always do, but she is sprinting away toward her house and she doesn’t see me.

I am surprised by the knob of angry feeling, hard like a baseball, lodged in my chest.

The rest of the week, we listen to everyone else’s speeches. On Friday, we vote for the best three and Mr. Sandler reveals the results at the end of class: Noam (“Everything You Need to Know in Life You Can Learn from a Game of Basketball”), Honey (“The Dos and Don’ts of Peeling an Orange”), and me (“How Are You Peeling?”). We each have to do our speech again on Monday. I want to be excited—well, I am excited—but it doesn’t fill me up the way I thought it would. It is laced with something sour.

As Honey and I make our way off the bus home, a bunch of kids at the back sing, “Honey, na-na, na-na, na-na, ah, ORANGE, ORANGE.”

“Get a life already,” Honey says to them, turning back for a minute before she steps off. But suddenly I feel like I can’t take it anymore. The baseball is rising into my throat. And I can’t swallow.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Honey says to me.

I wait until we reach the sidewalk, and then I tell her, “Why can’t you let me have my own thing for once?”

“What are you talking about, Milla?” She pushes the sleeves of Josh’s varsity jacket up. She somehow makes not having her own spring jacket look cool. “So we have the same speech topic—okay, it’s ridiculous—but it’s not the same speech, so it is what it is. It’s actually kind of funny.”

“No, it isn’t,” I say. “It’s sad. Why do you always feel like you have to win everything? Everyone loves you already. Everyone already thinks you’re great. Why can’t I win something for once?”

She stares at me. “You might, Milla. Your speech is really good.”

“Whatever,” I say.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asks. She looks genuinely surprised.

“What’s wrong with you?” I challenge. It doesn’t even make sense, but I don’t care. I want to throw this baseball of anger right in her face.

“Milla, not everybody refuses to participate in things they think they might not be good at.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say.

We have been walking, but now she stops and steps toward me. I stand still. We are about the same height, but I don’t look directly at her.

“It means you can’t just give up and cry when you think you don’t have a chance, or at the first sign that things aren’t perfect. What’s the point of only doing things you already know you’re good at?”