“Where is this coming from?” I asked softly, alarmed by the anger in her voice. Maybe it was the wine, I thought.

Elise’s breath hitched, like she was about to launch into another soliloquy, but then she caught herself and sighed.

“I’m sorry, Remy,” she said. “You’re right. It’s just a movie and real life doesn’t work like that. There is no karmic justice for shitty people.” A tear slid down her face. “I know it’s just a movie. I know, okay? But sometimes I just need to believe that I’m not always going to feel so helpless. I just need to believe that I’m strong enough to make it, that one day, they’ll regret ever underestimating me.” She released a sharp sigh and turned away from me.

“What’s going on?” I said, placing a soft hand on her wrist and she flinched, even though I’d just had my head on her shoulder only minutes ago. “Elise?”

She shook her head. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

And just like that, the person I thought I knew better than myself turned into a puzzle. I was about to ask again but she cut me off before I could speak.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Sorry for being so melodramatic.” She sighed heavily and took the bottle, tipping it back to finish what was left. “You know, Remy,” she said. “You’re lucky.”

I stared at her in confusion and remained quiet.

“Like, your parents suck, right?” she continued. “But they’re not that bad.”

“What?”

“And at least you have Christian,” she added.

I scoffed. “Christian is worse than useless.”

“He seems nice,” she said, and I swore I heard a hint of infatuation in her voice.

“Yeah, but he isn’t,” I said. “It’s all just a facade.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Never mind,” I said. “And besides, I think he has a girlfriend.”

“What? Who?”

“The captain of the field hockey team, Vanessa something, I think?”

“Oh,” she said, an entire ocean of disappointment squeezed into one syllable.

“Why?” I asked. “Do you like him?” We both knew she did but I wanted her to just admit it. We were best friends, family, but she still couldn’t trust me.

“What? No,” she said. Our eyes locked and we stared at each other, neither of us giving in.

“What’d you mean earlier,” I said finally, breaking eye contact. “When you said my parents weren’t that bad?”

“Just—” She turned to look me in the eye. “There are, you know, gradations. And your parents suck but they could suck more. So much more.” She was talking about her mother, how she’d been abandoned.

“All they do is argue with each other and throw the word divorce around once in a while,” she continued, eyes closed and oblivious to the impact her words had on me. “You’re lucky, in a lot of ways.”

“What?” I pulled away from her, shrinking into myself. I couldn’t believe she was comparing our childhoods to see who had it worse. She’d seen what they were like, knew what it was like for me. Just because my mom didn’t leave when I was seven didn’t mean I was lucky. In some ways, I wished she had left.