Michelle Frisch wasn’t born a villain; she was carved into one by the brutal chisel of abandonment and contrast. A misunderstood tempest, both parents long gone, she grew up fractured—separated not just from her brother but from the kind of love that heals wounds before they scar. She was placed in the hands of her grandmother, a woman with pearls around her neck and porcelain perfection in her ways. A posh relic of another era. They clashed, yes—but somehow, they fit. Like jagged puzzle pieces forced together, they formed something coherent, even if jagged edges remained.

Michelle thrived in the cracks of her contradictions. She stomped through life in a pair of crocs—those defiant, ugly, beautiful, perfect things—unbothered by seasons or stares. Her MP3 player, her secret treasure, became her escape. In the quiet sanctuary of the school library, she’d scavenge for songs to fill the void, to build the walls that kept her afloat in a world that felt perpetually ready to sink her.

But the tragedy of Michelle wasn’t in her quirks or even her trauma—it was in the way she wielded her pain. Left alone, she was good. Good in the way the sun is good when it breaks through clouds, steady and golden and warm. But life wouldn’t leave her alone, and neither would her own mind. There was always the comparison, the silent battle between her and the happiest girl in her class—a girl with a past just as broken but a future that shimmered in every room she entered. Michelle hated her for it. Loved her for it. Hated herself for the comparisons she couldn’t stop making.

So Michelle became unbearable. A classic school bully, they’d say. But what did they know? Did they see the way her hands trembled at night, clutching that MP3 player like it was the only thing keeping her together? Did they hear the music she chose—the kind that spoke to the invisible parts of her, the parts she couldn’t show even to herself?

Michelle Frisch was fire in a glass box. Misunderstood, sure, but also misunderstood by herself. She was the girl who could never decide if she wanted to shatter the world or just let it pass her by.

Her story isn’t a tragedy—it’s a question. A question of what could have been, what still could be, and what happens when we compare ourselves to those we believe are happier, better, or more whole. Michelle wasn’t insufferable—she was human. Terribly, tragically, beautifully human.