Gemma.

“You look so cute,” she squeals. “Are those shoulder pads?” She pokes my shoulders. I’m so thrown by her presence, which has blown up my vision of how this would go, that I simply stand there and gawk. The only thing about Gemma that’s changed is the new card attached to her lanyard that reads: event coordinator. “What have you been up to? Tell me everything.”

I meet her wide, expressive eyes, holding my breath. And then I realize.

I’m not here to quit after all.

“I am here to tell you,” I say, voice quavering. My hands curl, nails biting into the plump flesh of my palms; the sensation is an anchor, keeping my feet flat on the carpet so that I can’t vacate my body. Then, with a steadiness I do not feel, I start over. “I am here to tell you that you hurt me. And that it wasn’t okay.”

Gemma’s eyebrows jump up her forehead. “What? How did I hurt you?”

“You were supposed to be my friend. But you tricked me, playing with my feelings, and after the truth came out, my hurt feelings still came second to yours. I am a person, Gemma. You treat other people badly. So I think somebody ought to tell you.”

Her smile slips, lips parting in surprise. I watch her vibrant inner light go out.

“I trusted you,” I go on, trying not to cry. It can’t be helped. I’m not sad about what she did anymore, but baring my emotions like this has me on the edge of myself, and I am so intensely exposed that the tears arrive without permission. “You lied. You embarrassed me. Used me. Took advantage of me. I don’t know how it ever got from you confessing you’d tricked me to us just pretending it never happened and you acting like everything was okay. Everything hasn’t been okay for me.”

“I’m—” She’s sputtering. “I’ve already apologized—”

If I let her interrupt, she’ll take control of this conversation and I’ll never get it back. Somehow, I’ll end up comforting her. “You wanted me to forgive you because you didn’t want to have to feel guilty anymore,” I say in a rush. It drops like an anvil, and she snatches her hands back from where she’s been wringing them in front of her, waiting to be held. Coddled. “Wanting to be forgiven isn’t the same as being remorseful.

“I know you could be incredibly nice,” I go on. “You bought me a birthday cake. We went to the movies together. We went shopping. And that was fun! But I think the reason you went out of your way to be extra, extra nice was so that you could then get away with occasional cruelty. I never called you on it. I should have confronted you, but I didn’t, because even as the protagonist in my own life, my feelings came second to yours.”

Her face is changing color, but the impossible has happened: Gemma Peterson is speechless.

“I let you think that your apologies were enough, even though they were empty, and I could tell you didn’t appreciate the full extent of what you’d done, how awful you made me feel. I should have stood up for myself. The quick forgive-and-forget wasn’t fair to me.” My chest is unbearably tight. I do not feel lighter than air or that all has been made right with the world. Just the opposite: I’m tasting my breakfast all over again. The room spins.

But this has weighed heavily upon my heart, and I persevere. “So here I am,” I finish quietly, “better late than never, to tell you that your forgiveness is not the point. You need to learn how to be a better friend. If you keep treating people like their emotions don’t matter as much as yours, like they’re just background roles in your life, you will end up all alone.”

A pregnant pause follows, in which I expect Gemma to land on habits and gush apologies like she used to. Meaningless ones, because she wasn’t sorry at all—she only wanted sympathy.

She does not apologize. Instead, she is angry.

“Well, I am sorry you feel that way—” she spits, complexion going red and blotchy.

I give her shoulder a mild squeeze. “You don’t have to say anything. Just sit with it, okay?”

When I walk away, I look back once. She’s already walking away, too, in the opposite direction. She is going to go find the nearest person and complain about me, and garner their sympathy. There will be crocodile tears. I’ll be the villain in her story for a while, but then hopefully, as time passes, what I’ve said will sink in. Maybe not consciously. But maybe she’ll start to do better by others. That is going to have to be enough for me.

Out in the parking lot, I find Wesley pinning my hotel brochures under somebody’s windshield wipers. Little pink rectangles wave in the breeze on every car in the first two rows. He revolves to take me in, squinting against the sunlight. “Well?”

I sigh.

“Didn’t talk to my old boss. Didn’t give the middle finger to Christine.” I hang my head, still nauseated. My skin is overheated yet clammy, my arms and legs weak. Not at all how I thought victory would feel. “So. Didn’t exactly go down in spectacular flames like I set out to.”

Wesley tips my chin up with one finger. One corner of his mouth lifts. “Of course you didn’t.”

“You didn’t believe in me?” I return, half in jest.

“Just the opposite. My Maybell is not a vengeful person. Her head is in the clouds because she can see the beauty in the world from up there. Going down in flames doesn’t suit.”

I don’t know how to respond to that, choosing to lean my cheek into his palm. At thirty years old, I am finally accepting that I am simply nobody else but myself. I will always only be me. A little bit naïve, a lot idealistic. In the regard of many, understated to the point of forgettable, and easy prey, because my heart is so large a target. But those who deserve to be in my circle will like me just as I am, and will treat me the way I deserve to be treated.

“On to the next,” I announce, linking my arm in his. “It’s your turn now.”