She stares, surprised. “You didn’t even have to think about it.”
I offer a small shrug. “You can survive without a phone. You can’t survive a month in the dark.”
The girl’s expression shifts from playful to genuinely curious. She tilts her head.
“Okay,” she says, leaning in closer. “Next one. Would you rather be invisible for a day, or fly for a day?”
Invisible.
The answer is immediate, instinctive. The freedom of true unseenness. To move through the world without being watched, without being judged, without being a target. To exist without the weight of other people’s eyes.
But I can’t say it that fast.
It would sound too eager.
So I pretend to think. I press my lips together. I look at the ceiling. I let the silence stretch, just long enough to seem thoughtful.
“Invisible,” I say softly. The word comes out quiet, almost a whisper. “Flying would draw every eye to you. Being seen… isn’t always a good thing.”
I didn’t mean to say that last part. It slipped out. I wasn’t paying attention, and the words came out before I could stop them.
She studies me, her playful smirk fading into a more thoughtful expression. “…Yeah,” she says quietly. “I get that.”
She shifts in her chair, her focus now completely on me. “Last one,” she declares. “Would you rather live one day with no rules, or one day with all the rules?”
I look down at the table.
The wood is scarred. The grain is dark. Someone has carved a small heart into the surface near my elbow, the initials inside too faded to read.
A day with no rules is a day of unleashed, unpredictable power. It’s the world my father lived in. A world where there were no consequences, no boundaries, no limits. A world where the strongest did what they wanted, and the weakest endured.
A day with all the rules?
Rules are a map. They tell you where the dangers are. They create a structure you can hide within. Rules are walls. Rules are shelter. Rules are the difference between chaos and order, between the storm and the cellar where you wait for it to pass.
I meet her eyes.
“A day with all the rules,” I answer. “It’s safer to know exactly what is forbidden than to live in a world where anything is possible.”
The girl doesn’t move.
She holds my gaze. Her mouth is slightly open. Her eyes are wide. Then, a slow, genuine smile spreads across her face, one of unexpected respect.
“You’re really smart,” she states, simple and certain.
And before I can process the compliment, she’s up and gone, disappearing into the crowd of cousins and aunts and uncles, her pink sweater swallowed by the noise.
I sit there, frozen.
Smart.
The word echoes in a hollow place inside me.
Five letters. But it feels enormous, too large to fit inside the small, careful space where I keep myself.
No one has ever called me that before.
Not my mother, who looked at me with love and care and saidyou’re so goodandyou’re so patientandyou’re so strong. Not Julian, who looked at me with approval and saidyou’re so kindandyou’re so thoughtfulandyou’re so understanding.
