The way I see it, there are two types of people: the stars, and everybody else. The stars are the leads, the people who dictate the actions of everyone around them. They're the kind of people who would be the main character in a book or a movie, with tragic backgrounds and inferiority complexes and beautiful, haunted eyes. They shine with some sort of inner specialness that can't be bottled or defined, but is undeniable. Everybody else is just caught in their orbit.

Laila Benson is most definitely a star. I met her when I was five years old, the summer before second grade started. We were both in line to get our ears pierced in Claire's, each of us clinging tightly to our mother's hand. I remember a lot of weird details, like the dress I was wearing (green with little daisies embroidered on it) and the hair of the woman doing the piercings (red-brown with gray roots) and the song playing over the store's radio (something by Colbie Caillat). Most of all, I remember the tortured shrieks of girls who went before us, which had everyone in line flinching.

I kept sneaking glances at Laila, who at the time looked like she might've been a Disney princess: silky blonde ringlets, wide green eyes, and a frilly white dress with puffed sleeves. She was the closest one to my age in the room, and I knew she was in my grade, but I'd never spoken to her before.

She turned and caught me looking, so I gave a startled wave. She stiffened and turned away, but then a moment later, she looked over her shoulder at me, and when I smiled, she smiled back.

"Are you scared?" I whispered.

She nodded, not the least bit embarrassed. "I don't want my ears pierced," she said fiercely. "My cousin's ear got 'nfected and turned big as an apple when she got her ears pierced."

My stomach twisted. "Big as an apple?" The image of an apple dangling from someone's head in place of an ear appeared in my mind. Terrifying. 

Laila nodded. "My mom's trying to make me, but I won't let them. Just wait and see." She said it so ominously that I got goosebumps.

She did not disappoint.

When it was her turn, she was calm and placid as she climbed up onto the stool. She let them clean her earlobe and numb it with ice. But the moment the piercing gun came out, she hauled back her little fist and socked the woman holding it so hard that there was an audible crunch. The piercing gun went flying out of the woman's hand and hit me in the face, and the impact made the trigger release, launching a needle into the skin over my eyebrow. I screamed, the Claire's worker screamed, my mom screamed, and Laila screamed loudest of all.

We were all rushed to the ER in a herd of wailing and lawsuit threats and some very nasty swearing on the part of Laila's mom. As we sat in the waiting room, perched next to each other with our mothers on either side, Laila whispered tearfully, "What's your name?"

"Sam-moa," I hiccuped. "Samoa."

"I'm Laila." She clutched a little sheet of something she'd pulled from her mother's purse and stared at me intensely. "Do you like rabbits?"

I nodded warily, wiping a tear away with the back of my hand.

Laila unclenched her fists to reveal a little strip of stickers. Somberly, she peeled one off the paper and stuck it to my dress, like she was pinning a badge of honor. The smiling face of a cartoon rabbit stared up at me, positioned upside down and slightly lopsided.

"I'm sorry about your eye, Samoa," she said, sniffling.

"That's okay," I sniffled back.

By the end of the day, the Claire's worker had a broken nose, Laila had two broken fingers, and I had a black eye and unwanted eyebrow piercing— and a new friend.

Our friendship cemented over the summer, so that by the time we started second grade, we were sworn BFFs. Laila didn't live in my neighborhood like all the other friends I had at the time, but it didn't matter. Bonds forged in emergency rooms were not easily forgotten.

We ate lunch together, we always picked each other first for playground games, and we made friendship bracelets for each other. We vowed never to like anyone else better than we liked each other, not even the girls who lived on our own blocks. We followed all the rules of second grade best friend-ship, and by the time I was seven, I couldn't imagine not having Laila in my life. We were part of each other's families. Her parents were my parents, my siblings were her siblings, and her endless hoard of cousins— well, I figured out how to put up with them too.

So when Will Monterey moved into the house next door, it never occurred to me not to share him with Laila too. We were eight at the time, and we'd been waiting all summer for someone to replace the Shepherdsons who used to live there. As soon as I saw the moving truck, I called Laila on our house phones and then ran outside. I remember stopping short when he climbed out of the minivan, sandy-haired and blue-eyed and perfect. He looked at me and flashed a white, toothy smile, and despite the fact that I'd just last Monday become engaged to Gabe Federman, I fell so hard it left cracks in the sidewalk. Literally. I tripped on my own shock and sprawled over the concrete. Will rushed to help me, and the moment his hand touched mine, I knew. This was love.

"Are you okay?" he asked, pulling me up.

"Are you?" I joked, and the fact that this is the first thing I ever said to him makes me cringe to this day. But he laughed, and good Lord, I could have loved him for his laugh alone.

"I'm Will," he said, tilting his head and grinning a sideways sort of grin.

"I'm Samoa." I stared at him intently, irrationally worried that he wouldn't like my name.

"Samoa," he repeated, enunciating each syllable carefully. "That's cool."

"Thanks." I smiled at him, and we just stood there, smiling at each other, until his dad called him away.

That evening Laila biked to our neighborhood, and the three of us made s'mores in my backyard with my Easy-Bake oven. I kept sneaking glances at Will, and then turning bright red every time he looked at me. My newfound feelings should have made me tongue tied and shy, but instead, I was like a water fountain, spewing words non-stop. Luckily, he didn't seem to mind. Will was eight months older than us, but despite the age difference, which seemed monumental at the time, we became fast friends that night.

From third grade onwards, it was always me, Laila, and Will. Even though he made guy friends and we had our circle of girls, we had a special bond, and outside of school, we did everything together. Backyard campouts with Easy Bake s'mores and the scariest ghost stories we could think of, enormous leaf piles we would labor over for days and then bury ourselves inside of, ice skating on Christmas break until we couldn't feel our faces and went inside for hot chocolate. We called ourselves The Three Amigos.

For whatever reason, I never told Laila how I felt about Will. I suppose even then, I knew this wasn't like the other crushes I'd had; the ones that came and went in the matter of a week, just part of the drama of 8-year-old dating. Will was more. Will was my soulmate. I didn't care how far away my eighteenth birthday was, or how long I'd have to wait to see the proof written on our skin. I'd never felt more sure of anything.

Of course, things don't stay as simple as they are in childhood. As the years went by, Will grew taller and more solid, his hair darkening and his voice deepening. I developed curves, and had to learn to deal with my boobs hanging out of literally everything I wore. And Laila? She morphed into something unrecognizable.

The change was like a dam breaking, and you know that there had to have been cracks before, but all you remember is the moment it collapses. I mean, she'd always had problems with her mom, and I knew she was having a hard time with her absentee father, but this was different. It was like one day she just woke up angry, and that anger swallowed her whole. She'd withdraw into herself, isolating herself from everyone and everything for days, only to come back with a feverish gleam in her eye and a reckless energy. She got in fights, dropped classes, and started hanging out with a more dangerous crowd. By the time she was fourteen, she'd been arrested four times and had two misdemeanors on her record.

And it didn't get better. There was this darkness that hung around her. Whenever I looked in her eyes, I could see something broken staring back. It scared me.

Then one day, a few months after she turned fifteen, Laila stole her cousin's car and drove it into the river. Two weeks later, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

The night she found out, she texted us to meet at my house. Laila's cousin dropped her off, and Will just climbed in through my bedroom window. We all three sat on the floor, and Laila made us swear on the soul of Michael Jackson that we'd keep it a secret before she told us. She actually cried, which was one of three times I could remember seeing her cry, including the time we met.

"Laila, you should tell people," I'd said softly, putting my hand on top of hers. "There are so many stories about you, you should set the record straight."

She shook her head adamantly, sending dirty blonde hair whipping back and forth over her face. "I don't care what they say about me. I don't want anyone to know."

"Why not?" Will brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "It's treatable. You'll take your medicine and the episodes will stop, and it'll all go back to normal."

"No," she repeated, in an almost panicked voice. She swallowed and closed her eyes. "I don't want to be the crazy girl. Okay?"

"Okay." I squeezed her fingers. "Okay."

Will pulled Laila against him. "Everything's going to be fine," he murmured.

I watched her head drop onto his shoulder, his hand stroking her hair, and the way he looked at her broke my heart. I swore, in that moment, I disappeared. It was just the two of them.

That was the day I figured it out. Laila was a star, the star, the one we all plotted our courses around. She was beautiful and destructive and magnetic in a way that none of us— not me, and especially not Will— could resist.

And me? I was everybody else.