To Lacy — the girl who had it all, from the girl who never did.
Dearest Lacy,
I have spent years resenting you, and you never even noticed.
It has been a decade, but I still remember the first time my life was coloured cyan instead of orange like Riley. Well, at least Riley was a teenager in the sequel.
I was a child.
Young, dumb, naive, innocent. You name it.
And there was no sequel.
I know that envy is an ugly emotion. We’re taught to believe that it makes us bitter, that it twists us into something cruel. But what about the kind of envy that doesn’t want to tear someone down — when you just want, so desperately, to be them?
When I, so desperately, want to be you?
Everyone has a Lacy.
Have you ever watched someone take the things you worked so hard for, and it wasn’t even their fault? Have you ever swallowed down your own bitterness because you knew you weren’t supposed to hate them?
That’s Lacy.
And to me, Lacy came into my life when I was barely a teenager. I was so ahead of the curve that the curve became a sphere, as Taylor Swift said. And the reason why the curve became a sphere to begin with, was because of her.
Because of Lacy.
Every leadership position, every academic accomplishment, even the attention from the boy I liked, she snatched from me. She was always, always, the first in every field I thought I was an expert at. Not in an ‘I got your man’ kind of way. But in a way that spoke just how the world bent for her, towards her, and upon her. As if it shifted just to make space for her without her even asking.
“Do you hate her?”
I don’t. But I wish I did.
I resent her.
She was kind, and I tried to be too. But it’s hard to hold kindness in your hands when your hand is full of splinters — when every time someone chose her, it felt like pulling another one out.
“You never had to try, did you? You walked into a room, and the world rearranged itself around you. Meanwhile, I was setting myself on fire just to be seen in the dark.”
There was always her.
She was a name in every room before she even stepped inside.
I wonder if she ever noticed how I shrank when she entered a room. How my voice got quieter, how I swallowed a ‘That should’ve been me’ with a front of ‘I’m so happy for you’, and how I stopped trying to be seen, because what was the point?
I told myself it was fine. That it didn’t matter. That I was being ridiculous.
I was wrong.
Because why would a child ever have to wonder:
“What if I was just prettier and less annoying? What if I was skinnier, taller, and less socially awkward? What if it’s my genetics to blame for how I look and how I speak? What if I was born into a family like hers? What if I was more known by the teachers? What if I tried harder?
Would they have chosen me?
Would I have gotten that role?
Would I have been the first choice, and not the name they picked when hers wasn’t around?”
And the worst part? It’s not her fault.
She’s doing nothing wrong and you can’t hate her for it. I can’t be upset over something she’s not to blame for. And she’s the sweetest, kindest person I’ve known.
She deserved all the good things that happened to her.
But didn’t a twelve-year-old me do too?
And if I did back then—why do I still wonder if I do now?
A Letter to Lacy.
My Dearest, Lacy,
I told myself that people are just people.
That you weren’t special. That the world didn’t tilt in your favour.
That if I squinted hard enough, I could pretend you were just another girl.
But people aren’t just people when they’re you, Lacy.
You are made of angel dust;
Soft and sweet and untouchable.
Something divine, something celestial —
something I could never be.
And I hate that I see it.
I hate that I feel it.
I hate that I know it’s not your fault.
But it doesn’t change the way you poison every little thing that I do.
It doesn’t change the way I see you everywhere.
I catch glimpses of you in passing mirrors.
I hear echoes of you in compliments I’ll never receive.
Even when I’m alone, I’m still losing to you.
And the worst part?
I don’t just loathe you.
I worship you.
I study you like scripture,
like if I just learn you well enough, I can figure out what makes you so wanted.
I try to rationalise — people are people.
But Lacy, it’s like you’re out to get me.
Like some cruel, cosmic joke where I am the punchline,
and you are the girl everyone adores.
And I don’t even think you know it.
Where does this end me, us, you, me?
“It’s a strange kind of pain, realising that your presence was never carved in stone, just written in sand. That it only takes one wave — one her — to wash you away.”
What I failed to see back then — what envy never let me see — was that sand isn’t a weakness.
It’s a canvas. And I was never meant to be written in stone.
I spent years resenting you, Lacy. I thought if I could just be more like you, I would finally be enough. But envy is a liar. It tells you that you’re incomplete when really, you were never supposed to be someone else to begin with.
Maybe the world never rearranged itself for me. Maybe I never walked into a room and turned heads. Maybe I was never the first choice, never the brightest star in someone’s sky.
But does that mean I was never shining at all?
Because here I am, after all these years. And despite it all, I am still here.
Still standing. Still carving my own name, wave after wave.
And maybe that was enough all along.
And maybe, my Lacy has her own Lacy.
So it speaks. For everyone.
Have faith, always.
