But I was lying. In the moment there’d been a weird pause. Even Ben felt it. Then Kelly had laughed, a weird throaty sound I didn’t recognize, and leaned across me to kiss Ben on the mouth. That was two months ago. Now she and Ben eat lunch off campus every day, drive to and from school together, and I’m left in the Dust Bowl of Edenrock High to fend for myself.

The cloudy sky turns darker as I approach Eden Boulevard. The thought of the day ahead, seven hours of Trying to Look Fine, of superficial encounters with Kelly in the hall, of the shiny, Caucasian, clearly hot student body fluttering past me like a flock of the same kind of bird stops me in my tracks. And then my shoes stage a mutiny. My jeans are all in. My backpack is ready, and even my hippie-parent earrings are on board. I am overridden, not clued in to the plan, just following along as I cross the street and get on the bus heading away from school.

When it reaches the BART station, I look at the clock. Something must happen when a student skips school—a phone call, a note sent home. I would have to explain and Mom either would be pissed and silent or, worse, she’d be worried. In a month of double shifts that I know are the result of the amazing summer camp she sent me to this year, the first time I’d been able to attend with Kelly, I would be a total dick to add any stress.

But it’s too late now. First period is almost over.

I take a deep breath and let my mom’s jacket lead the way. With its peace patch and embroidered doves and hole at the hem from an escape from the cops during my mom’s farmworkers’ rights activism days, there is only one logical destination.

The train ride to Berkeley passes quickly. Kelly was always the one in charge on BART. She was always good with directions, with maps. I was good at not losing Kelly. Or I used to be.

But now it seems I can do it on my own. I remember to change trains in Oakland and stand to get off at the Berkeley station like I do it every day. Without Kelly, I actually blend in—just another brown girl with a backpack and messy bun. I let myself pretend to be a college student.

I ascend from the station into the sunlit October morning. The streets have a half degree of strangeness, a shine I never noticed before, like a city in a portal fantasy that is almost but not quite like the regular city on the other side of the magic door.