“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she muses. “I could drop it to a minor, but I like a challenge.”

“Sounds like it.”

She goes on and on, chirping about majors and internships, without a single glance at the window. It’s like she’s absolutely certain the plane will land without incident because she has things to do and places to be.

And she’s right.

We touch down with a squeak of tires and a smattering of applause. Something in my stomach unclenches so I can take a full breath. Guess I wasn’t quite as relaxed as I thought. The flight attendant crackles over the intercom while people throughout the cabin gather bags and laugh in relief. As we’re deplaning, I open my phone and check my messages. Six of them. Zari, Dad, and three from Mom.

I pull up Mom’s messages first, focusing on the last one.

Mom: Text when you land. Working, but weather has me worried.

I frown and run my thumb over the screen, imagining Mom obsessively checking the weather on her phone. Maybe I’m exaggerating. She wasn’t always like this, but after I moved… Well, after Phoebe, really. Everything was different after Phoebe.

“Boyfriend?” Harper guesses.

I shake my head. “Mom texts. The weather. You know.”

She laughs softly. “And I mom-talked all the way here with that transfer advice.”

I snort. “Trust me. You and my mother are polar opposites.”

Which is probably why I immediately liked Harper so much. Or at the least, why I want to be like her. Harper is like Aunt Phoebe with a style upgrade and a world-class travel log. My mom, by contrast, is quiet and cautious, a post-surgery nurse who’s afraid of infections and airplanes. And, for most of the last year, almost everything else.

Maybe she wouldn’t be so afraid if I’d stayed.

No. I can’t keep doing this. She wanted me to go. She wrote the check from Phoebe for half of my senior year, for Pete’s sake. And Dad jumped in to pay the rest, thrilled to have me on his side of the country a little longer. We all agreed this was best for me.

But was it best for her?

I step off the gangway into the airport and take a sharp breath. Every seat in sight is filled, phone cords strung from endless outlets, suitcases stacked in every corner. The walls are cluttered, too—lined with shopping bags and strollers and rumpled-looking travelers half-asleep or holding phones.

Something nudges my right arm. I turn to see Harper push past me, leather duffel rolling tidily beside her.

“Aren’t you going to talk to the desk?” I ask, nodding at the airline counter, where the entire population of Pennsylvania appears to be gathered.

“Spending Christmas Eve in an airport hotel? No thanks. I’m getting a car.”