There was a spot in the group, and it came down to you or another kid. The group made it subtly clear: there's room for one more, not two. And somewhere in the unspoken competition, you played the game. You let the other kid look bad. You agreed when the group cooled on them. You said nothing when you could have stuck up for them. It worked. You're in. They're out. But you know how it happened. You didn't get in purely on your own merits — you got in partly by helping push someone else out of the way. And every time you see that other kid now, alone where you used to both be hopeful, something in you knows exactly what you did.