She stares at some point over my shoulder, refusing to meet my eyes.

“Bella Rena… I’m… I…” she stops.

“What?”

“I am disgustingly jealous of your family.”

My jaw drops. “You are what of my what?!”

“Jealous. Like really, really jealous. Of your family. Your happy, crazy, noisy, messy family.”

“Gee, thanks.” I sit back down.

“I’m serious.”

She leans on the wall. “And the most annoying part is that you are constantly, constantly, complaining about them. Sometimes I just want to shake you and tell you to look around, and see what other people are going through. I love my parents and sisters, but do you have any idea the pressure I’m under? The expectations they have of me? The criticism and critiques, the nitpicking?”

She stands up straight, brushes her hair back, and grips her phone.

I watch her dumbly from the floor, feeling like I’d just walked into a tornado.

“And you know what else, Bella?”

I just stare at her.

“I don’t even like ballet. My mother does.”

And with that, she’s gone.

****

So the world has gone crazy. That’s fun. Fun, fun, fun.

I stay in my room for the next few hours, trying to wrap my mind around all the bombshells Atara has just dropped.

She is jealous of me. Me, with the older, less cool mother, and the clearance-rack wardrobe. Jealous of me for all the reasons I’ve been jealous of her. Uch. Jealousy is the worst. I hate it. I’m going to work on it from now on.

And, hello nuclear warheads, she doesn’t like ballet?

Um, hi, what? WHAT?

So I think. I think about the hours of her life she’s dedicated to dance lessons, practices, recitals. I think of the sores and callouses and aching muscles. A tear rolls down my face, because I. Miss. It. So. Much.

But the important realization is that if she puts that much effort into something she doesn’t actually like, then the pressure she’s under must be tremendous. And I’m sorry for her.

It’s armed with that pity that I leave my house to go find her.

And now it’s my turn to knock on her bedroom door.

And it’s my turn to speak.

“Atara, I never realized. I never knew. You… never told me.” I try to leave the accusing tone out of my voice.

She doesn’t say anything, so I turn to leave. “I’m sorry you’ve been in pain,” I whisper, and then I go. And I almost trip down her front steps because the tears are blinding me, and because I know, deep down, that Atara and I are no longer best friends. And even though I’m honestly okay with it, it still hurts, like when I gave Ma my pacifier at age four in exchange for a red tricycle. It was time, but I had cried anyway.

And nobody’s offering me a red tricycle today.

****

I decide to tell Ma, even though it’s hard for me to initiate openness like that.

I come up behind her as she fries schnitzel. She’s wearing an old snood and a robe, and the heat from the stove has turned her face red. But her eyes light up when she sees me, and I realize Atara’s right. I do take it for granted that Ma is always happy to see me, that Daddy spoils me, that my brothers protect me.

“How you doing, sweetie?”

I open my mouth, all ready to pour my heart out, and then snap it shut again.

“I’m great, Ma. Let me take over for you.”

And while she looks on with an only mildly shocked look on her face, I fry the rest of the schnitzel.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 823)