Phoebe wasn’t having that. One of the last conversations we had was her trying to convince me to make the move permanent. She’d pressed a check into my hand and held my wrist tight in her thin fingers. Told me she wanted me to go back, and more than that, she wanted me to go senior year, too.

Your work has heart, Mira. You have to follow that. It matters.

I don’t know if that’s true, but I wasn’t about to argue with my dying aunt.

“Anyway,” Harper says, bringing my attention back to the present. “No one is going to care that you’re at a community college once they see your work.”

Community college?

I think over our earlier conversation. I showed her photos of my most recent student exhibit. And I admitted I was a little disappointed in my painting instructor. I’m not sure why she thought I was in community college, but a transfer to any college isn’t possible. Because I’m still in high school.

I think about clarifying things, but why bother? If a random stranger on a plane wants to see me as a college freshman instead of a sick-to-death-of-high-school senior, who cares?

“I’ll think about it,” I say.

“You should,” she says. “You can text me if you want me to talk to my friend Jude.”

The plane dips hard left, a wing catching a downdraft. The crying woman screams, but Harper just sighs and asks me for my phone number so she can text me, still balancing her cup precariously in her left hand. I’m a far cry from a fearful flyer, but this girl is unflappable.

The plane settles into a hard shudder, and now lots of people are making noise. Harper huffs, muttering, “Honestly, if we’re going to crash, let’s do it so we can all be done with the theatrics.”

I clutch my armrests, but grin.

Dear, God, if you can hear me, please let me grow up to be like Harper.

“Anyway, Jude graduates next year,” she says. “Music history, which is such a trust fund major, but he’s had great opportunities. You said you’re not loving Everglen—Wait, it was Everglen, right?”

I nod—that’s the name of my high school. It feels a little weird, letting her continue on this line.

“You probably just need something more robust. You’d love CalArts. Everybody there does.”

“Wait, you don’t go there?”

“No, I’m an international relations major at Pomona.”

I smirk. “Sounds like a light load.”

She sighs. “It would be if I weren’t also majoring in Asian Studies.”

The plane lists hard to the right, then pops up and left. Others are crying now, and truthfully, I can’t remember a worse descent in my long history of flying. But Harper is still chattering on with a distant look in her eye.