“You don’t have to say anything yet,” Mark says. “We’ll talk it over when you come home this weekend. Are you ready to come back? I don’t want you to feel any financial pressures. We’ll take care of it. We’re just excited for you to start school.”

My heart is thumping in my throat again, each beat bringing me closer and closer to years of inescapable expectations that I can’t fully hate because the voice on the phone so desperately wants good things for me.

And that voice is all I have left of Jenna in this world.

“Mostly ready to come back,” I say. And to add an ounce of truth into this conversation, I add, “But I’m enjoying my time here, too.”

“Well, have a great time, Amelia. Trish and I can’t wait to see your pictures!”

I haven’t touched my camera since I got here, but I don’t tell Mark.

When the call disconnects, my phone screen returns to its usual backdrop. I haven’t really looked at it in a while. It’s a picture I took of a tree bent over on itself, its long, thick branches scraping the ground near the trunk, forming a natural archway. I used to think it was beautiful, a portal to another world. But now I wonder if it can still be called a tree if it lives bent in two rather than stretching toward the sky. I shove the phone back into my pocket.

“I just. Want. To be,” I say to the air.

“I understand,” Nolan says, and I jump at his voice so close to my ear.

“Sorry,” he says. “I saw you finish on the phone.”

I nod, but I’m thinking about how whales will swim on and on through ice and blue and sky no matter what happens to me, but does that mean I should live how I want? Or does that mean it doesn’t matter what I want and I should live up to everyone’s expectations and make the best of it?

“Is everything okay?” Nolan asks. “I know that’s a stupid question in general, but I meant for it to apply to this exact moment, to your call.”

“Yeah,” I say, still staring over the lake and begging the whales to make decisions for me. “I mean, yeah, I know what you meant, and I’m not sure if everything’s okay or terrible. That was Jenna’s dad. He wanted to let me know that he and Jenna’s mom are going to pay my college tuition. With a scholarship. In her name.”

“Wow,” Nolan says. That’s all he says.

“Wow?” I ask.

“That’s a lot to turn down.” Gentle, small waves lap at the silence. “You don’t sound happy about it.”