There are days when I saw you and couldn't help but wonder. How it was that we were so strikingly different; how it was that we were completely the same. We had grown up on the opposite sides of town, had lived our lives in ways the other could hardly fathom, and yet at the end of the day I saw so much of myself in you it was unnerving.

I was conceived in the back of some rustic station wagon. Nine months later I was born in the back of that same station wagon, as my mother didn't have nearly enough money to get us to the hospital. You, on the other hand were conceived in a bed of roses. By candlelight and champagne, after what had been a perfectly romantic evening for your parents. Nine months later you mother's personal doctor was encouraging her while your father had one hand pressing a wet cloth to her forehead and the other wrapped around her fingers.

We were the same age, you and I. We shared a birthday. And while you had your sixth birthday party in Disney World, with 22 of your classmates and friends, I spent it in a trailer, trying to piece together the incomplete Lego set my mother had found for me. You were surrounded by Mickey and Minnie; princes and princesses. Your father bought you a tiara to wear, and though you didn't realize it, it was made of real diamonds. In a way, you yourself were a princess. I was surrounded by little plastic blocks, some of which were broken while the rest didn't fit with each other. My mother brought me home a muffin she had taken from work. She lit a candle and told me to make a wish. I wished to be a princess. Inherently, I was wishing I were you.

During our teenage years, you attended a private high school. You were held on a pedestal by boys and girls alike. Everybody wanted some part of you. You were the epitome of perfection-or at least, you seemed to be. It was in your appearance, your personality, your behavior. Though you detested the part, you knew you fit the role so incredible well. And so you played it with grace and poise and all the things I had never learned.

I attended a public school on the outskirts of the city. And I, too, was noticed. People commented about my clothes, about the same sweatshirt I wore every day to school. They didn't realize it was the only shirt I owned that fit me properly, or the only one that didn't have any holes in it. All they saw was a mousy little girl lingering in the background, her hair unwashed and her fingernails dirty. Like you, I hated the part I'd been given. My audition was better, I was sure. I deserved something more, I convinced myself. However, I did what I could with what I'd been given. I kept my head low and ignored what people said, something you had been taught never to do.

Once you graduated college, there was a man. Your parents had introduced you two. They were mutual friends, and got along well in their social circuit. It was fitting that you and he might do the same. So you smiled, a mask you had grown accustomed to. You nodded in agreement and followed what they had asked of you. This was what you had done your entire life. Your parents had planned out your entire life and you were afraid that if you didn't follow this route, you would have nothing. You married the man and he gave you every material compensation a woman could dream of. It wasn't enough for you. You had grown up with material things-what you wanted was something substantial. He couldn't give it to you, and you never expected it. You only wished for it.

I'd barely graduated high school, so college wasn't much of an option. I spent my time working as a waitress in the local restaurant. I met a man, much like you had. He never offered me the world-only his heart. I took it, albeit reluctantly. Though he loved me and though he did what he could for me, I couldn't appreciate it. He bought me flowers occasionally, when he had the means to do so. I hated flowers. The things I wanted were things he could not offer me. I wanted diamonds and expensive champagne and romantic escapades to Venice or Rome. I wanted all sorts of things, but I expected nothing. I took his love and never returned it. Instead, I kept it for comfort's sake.

By some odd twist of fate, you and I actually knew each other. It wasn't that we were friends, because we hardly spoke. But on some level, we understood one another. We had something in common; something we couldn't figure out. Your life had been filled with all things prestigious. Physically, you had the world at your fingertips. Emotionally, you had nothing. And regardless of the fact that I had what you did not-the emotional support of the people in my life, I wanted everything you had. I wanted the title of a princess, while you just wanted to feel needed. You and I were two people who always wanted the things we knew we would never have. We were so amazingly different, and yet the one thing that bound us together was the thing we would never voice-our complete loathing for the lives we led.