I’m twenty years old and all I really want is a friend. I’m supposed to be the person with everything I, or anyone, could ever want. I am lucky to have what I have. Wealth, a loving family. Pretty dresses and large houses. I don’t have to worry about the future. I know what it will be. So yes, I have a lot. And my mother would tell me to not complain. So I don’t. Which is why she doesn’t know that I sit at my window watching women walk arm in arm down the street. She doesn’t know that I cry in films, not because the beloved pet dies, but when I see friends out for lunch. She doesn’t know that I pretend to write texts and talk to myself, pretending that it’s a friend receiving it. Having a friend would be so fun. I could gossip, complain about my life, giggle until my sides hurt. I could be normal. She wouldn’t care about who I was or how I acted. I could laugh as loudly as I wanted. Talk about anything I wanted. I could be normal. I could be myself.

“Be happy with what you have, Francesca.”

My mother’s words echo through my head again. I can just imagine her hard eyes and her mouth that never smiles. A friend would smile at me I’m sure. And yet, two decades later and I don’t have a friend. Maybe my mother is right. Maybe I’ll never have a friend. Maybe I was just born to be alone.