Oh, I went, all right. Rhode Island is the only state in the U.S. that still observes a legal holiday to mark the end of World War II. And for Beauty, that means an outlandish patriotic flotilla. At twilight, every boat is covered in strings of white lights, and they light the big braziers in the harbor. It’s as if the townsfolk of Beauty sat around and said: How can we outdo Fourth of July and stick it to those assholes in Boston by stealing all the end-of-summer tourists?

“If you were interning, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy the flotilla,” Mr. Phillips says solemnly, as if it’s my one dream in life.

Yeah, okay. I don’t really care about yachts covered in fairy lights. The internship was going to help me get to Los Angeles, and now I’m feeling like my ship is sinking in the harbor along with my dreams. I can’t explain to Mr. Phillips about the ticking time bomb that is my grandma returning from Nepal and the mess that is Mom’s relationship with Grandma, but now it’s summer, and I’m no closer to getting to LA than I was a few months ago.

A group of senior boys rolls past us down the hall, radiating arrogance and a toxic kind of laughter, and though I try to turn my head away, the leader spies me—an asshole varsity football player everyone calls Big Dave.

“Josie Saint-Martin.” My name is thick in his mouth, too familiar. He doesn’t even know me, not from childhood or now. “Coming to my party tonight? I’ll let you take my picture,” he says, kissing the air. “Private photo session.”

His boys laugh.

“Hard pass,” I tell him, hoping I sound tougher than I feel.

“All right, Mr. Danvers. Keep walking,” Mr. Phillips says, pointing down the hallway.

They shuffle away, Big Dave miming snapping photos while one of his buddies makes suggestive gestures behind Mr. Phillips’s back. I hate all of them. I hate Mr. Phillips for quietly apologizing for their obnoxious behavior, like he just saved me, but you know, boys will be boys. I hate that he doesn’t have a clue that I’ve had to endure this garbage day in, day out for months when teachers aren’t paying attention. I hate being angry all the time.

But most of all, I hate that after Big Dave and his gang of lunkheads have passed, I spy a lean figure in a black leather jacket across the hall, shutting his locker.

Lucky Karras.

Everywhere I go, there he is. The bookshop. The curb outside, where he parks his vintage red motorcycle. Silhouetted in the window of the boatyard’s offices across the street, petting their black cat. Standing in line in the doughnut shop down the block. And here at school.