Part 3Your Crown Has Nothing to Do with Me

That evening, our four-person group chat lit up.

Tyler dropped a pin for the restaurant: [Usual place, victory pizza! King and Queen are buying!]

Madison: [I told you all not to vote for us and nobody listened]

Tyler: [Don't play modest. Who spent an entire year going on about wanting to be on the superlatives page?]

Blake: [It's called the will of the people]

They went back and forth about beer, pizza, senior week, and the trip.

Nobody noticed that I hadn't said a word. Maybe nobody minded.

Madison: [Let's do Miami for the grad trip. Everyone good with that?]

Tyler: [I support the Queen's decision]

Blake: [Whatever the Queen says]

Nobody asked me what I wanted. They booked it.

They were the fraternity president, the vice president, and the sorority president.

And I was the one in the background, the one nobody would miss.

I backed out of the chat, and an email came in from the International Exchange Office at the University of Florence.

I could hear my own heartbeat. For a second, Blake, Madison, and Tyler stopped existing.

My hands weren't steady when I opened it, and there it was: the email I'd been dreaming about.

[Dear Claire, congratulations. Your exchange application has passed final review. Please confirm your placement by midnight this Friday. If you do not confirm by then, we will consider the offer declined.]

I first discovered Dante's Divine Comedy in an elective course.

The professor told us that Dante's own city had exiled him and forbidden him to return for the rest of his life.

Even in exile, he still wrote about Florence, rebuilding the city on paper even though he could never return to it.

Some people can only build what they want after they leave.

That courage and sense of freedom moved me.

Back then, I thought that even if I couldn't stop people from overlooking me, I would go after something I truly wanted, just this once.

I wanted out. I wanted a place where being quiet didn't leave you on the outside.

I read my Italian textbook until its corners curled and filled every margin with notes.

In the end, I applied to the University of Florence for a master's in Renaissance literature.

I never told anyone I had sent that application.

Madison had once suggested that the rest of us go to New York with her after graduation.

I was beside myself with happiness, believing they'd included me in their future. For a while, I even considered withdrawing my application.

But with my heart pounding, I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to translate literature, not trail behind the three of them.

Thank God I came to my senses before I spent my life orbiting them.