Rosalie was not the golden child because she was better than me.

Rosalie was the golden child because the system required one to justify the failure — you cannot have a scapegoat without also having a favorite, the two roles hold each other up like the sides of an arch.

I do not say this with bitterness anymore, though I earned some.

I say it because it is the truth I had to understand before I could stop believing the verdict they had spent thirty years handing down: that the smallness was in me.

It was never in me.