“I chose to be the bigger person. I just smiled sweetly and walked away.” She let out a big sigh. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t care about being nice. Sometimes I wish I always said what I wanted.” This surprised me—didn’t she always say what she wanted? What was she holding back?

“What’d you want to say?”

Elise grinned, a mischievous spark in her eye. “You and me, outside after school”—she raised her fists, shadowboxing in mock seriousness.

“Oh my God,” I said, laughing, eyes wide.

She laughed too. “To the victor goes the spoils.”

“What, I’m the spoils?” I said, pretending to be offended but secretly pleased.

“Yes,” she said, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “You’re the spoils, the prize.” It was incredible how a few words from her could make me feel lighter than air.

I knew Elise was just joking around, but it made me feel special, to be fought over, to be liked. To be a prize to someone like Elise, so confident and warm, sparkling with life. Someone who could have her pick of friends but somehow chose me.

My phone buzzed with a new text but I ignored it.

“Melody again?”

I shrugged.

Elise sighed once more, like she was bored even by the idea of Melody. “She’s such a rule-follower, someone without imagination. She’s the kind of girl who’s going to grow up to be a doctor or lawyer or engineer.”

“She wants to be a doctor,” I said. She sometimes spoke admiringly of my mom, which was infuriating, especially because I never felt like I could tell Melody the truth about my mom.

“See? Exactly. I know her entire life already. She’ll paint her life by numbers. Graduate with straight As, go to Emory, become a ‘productive member of society,’ ” she said, adding air quotes. “She’ll get married to an equally boring guy, have boring kids who’ll go on to start the miserable cycle all over again. Then she’ll pass away peacefully in her sleep at the age of ninety-one and her family will cry and grieve for a while, but ultimately, history won’t remember her. And when they too are gone, it’ll be as if she never even existed. What’s the point of life if you’re not going to exist? If you’re just going to be forgotten?”

She hadn’t mentioned my parents but I couldn’t help thinking of them, their obsession with image and perfection. What was it for? It was all meaningless in the end. They were living a lie, a life they thought they should want. But Elise didn’t believe in any of that.

“I’m going to be remembered,” she declared. “I’m going to leave a mark.” She was wild and free, she was larger than life. She was going to really exist.

It’s not that I’d never thought about wanting to be remarkable, but I’d never believed in it with such certainty and confidence. And even if I did, I couldn’t say it out loud like she could. Elise didn’t seem to hold back, ever.