Chapter 2
OP: [She's always glowing, impossible to ignore.]
OP: [We were high school friends, and pretty much every guy in our class was into her.]
OP: [People only ever notice me when I'm with her.]
OP: [So yeah, save your breath. I'm not leaving her side.]
OP: [She's generous and really capable. She's always there for me, whether it's work or life.]
OP: [I just can't stand seeing her so happy every single day.]
OP: [It's like everything comes easy to her—love, friendship, career. She just snaps her fingers, and it's all hers.]
OP: [She's always telling me how wonderful the world is. It's just absurd.]
OP: [She has no idea that for people like us, pain is what life is really all about.]
Obviously, the poster was deeply introspective and incredibly articulate.
With each part of her story, the criticism faded, and more people started to support her.
Many even empathized with her struggles, saying they could truly relate.
Commenter: [I get you.]
Commenter: [Your bestie is just like those clueless sunshine heroines you see in TV dramas.]
Commenter: [She's got it all—rich family, everyone loves her—and then she goes and questions the girl stuck in hell, asking why she can't just be nice.]
Commenter: [Ugh, those types are the absolute worst.]
I breathed a sigh of relief.
No way was the poster Jenny, and I definitely wasn't the best friend she wrote about.
My life wasn't nearly as smooth sailing as she made it sound.
Back when it was time for the college entrance exams, I got hit with a nasty stomach bug. It was so bad that I couldn't even stand up, and I ended up missing the exams entirely.
While everyone else headed off to college, I had to repeat my senior year and wait for another chance.
When I first joined the company, my boss made my life hell.
He dumped all the hardest, most thankless work on me, took all the credit for himself, and always threw me under the bus when things went wrong.
All because he tried to get handsy with me, and I absolutely ripped into him right in front of the whole office.
Luckily, the company got a new CEO who finally fired that sleazy manager, and things got a little easier for me.
I went from being the scapegoat to just another overworked drone who got paid a bit more for doing more.
Either way, I was still just a workhorse.
*****
My family wasn't exactly rolling in cash.
My parents were just regular working folks, scrimping and saving their whole lives just to afford a house and a car.
At best, we were middle-class. I couldn't even pretend to be one of those rich girls.
Honestly, when it came to family background, Jenny's family was actually better off than mine.
Her dad owned a supermarket, and her mom worked a steady government job. Together, they pulled in a solid middle-class income, well into the six figures a year.
But when it came to Jenny, her parents were always stingy. They just wouldn't spend on her.
I still remember when her little brother hit his senior year. The family went all in and hired a private tutor.
Each lesson cost about one hundred dollars, which was quite pricey.
By the end of the year, they had spent more than ten thousand dollars on his lessons.
And after all that, the best he could do was get into a community college.
Once they were both in school, Jenny got about three hundred a month for living expenses, while her brother received over one thousand.
The difference in their financial situations was so stark that people would never guess they were siblings from the same family.
Luckily, Jenny was a total optimist. Even with all that unfair treatment, she'd only get a little sad every now and then.
She was unbelievably chill, the type who never let anything get to her.
She couldn't care less about her brother, her family, or even her job.
If the company asked her to stay late, she would quietly clock out anyway.
Team-building? She was always a no-show.
The moment she clocked out, her phone went straight to airplane mode. No way her coworkers or boss could get through.
The company kept piling on petty rules and extra hassles, clearly hoping she'd quit on her own.
She started out in sales when she first joined.
Now, she was stuck doing menial admin work.
She was making barely above minimum wage, practically nothing.
I'd tried to tell her to work harder, but she just rolled her eyes and said, "This world isn't about working hard to get ahead."
"If hard work really paid off, then farmers would be the richest people in the world," she'd reply matter-of-factly.