Did you make any new friends? she’d asked when she picked me up from school the next week, still hopeful. By then, the rumors had reached me. The real reason why nobody wanted to sit next to me in class. To them, I was the girl who’d pushed someone off the stairs at my old school, the freak who’d been expelled for exhibiting violent, unstable behavior, the outcast who’d lashed out at one of the most popular, beloved boys.

During those days, it felt like I would die before the rumors did.

Did you make any new friends? my mom had asked again after I moved to my current school. It had felt strange to call Cate Addison a friend, as if I were imposing, even though we did everything friends ought to: We ate lunch together, shopped together, saved each other’s numbers and made plans for the weekends. But I was too relieved to have someone to eat lunch with, someone who would smile back at me when I greeted them. I did, I’d told my mother, and her relief was even more palpable than mine. See? I knew all you needed was a fresh start, she’d gushed, squeezing my hand. You deserve one.

Now I glance over in the direction of the bathroom, which Daisy had rushed into after I offered to let her go first, promising she’d be done as soon as she could and apologizing three times for making me wait while I reassured her, laughing, just as many times that it was fine. The shower is running loudly enough to cover my next words, so I say, “There’s this girl who’s really nice. Everyone’s been pretty nice to me, actually.”

“I’m so glad,” my mom says. “It might be just what you need.”

I push myself up from the pillows. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you don’t have any friends who are from a similar background. Not that Cate and your other friends aren’t wonderful young women,” she adds quickly. “But the more friends, the better—and you know, you might find that the people you meet on this trip have a lot in common with you.”

Her words are still running in a loop inside my head after we hang up.