“Like … if you think our school isn’t diverse, you should see the school I went to before.” She chuckles, but there’s a hint of sadness to it. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. Dublin is—weirdly—cosmopolitan. Maybe not so much in our little corner of it, but it is. If you go into town, the place is full of people from all parts of the world. A lot of them are Spanish students who love to block every doorway in existence—because apparently Spanish students don’t come here to study English or tour Ireland, they just come to stand in front of doors and inconvenience the rest of us. But there are people from other places too—from Poland and Brazil and Nigeria, and so many other countries.

“That … must have been difficult,” I offer, but immediately I regret it. The words don’t sound like enough. Maybe they even sound a little condescending. Unhelpful.

But Flávia shrugs. “It is what it is.”

“Can I ask you something?” I say after a moment of silence passes between us.

“Didn’t you already ask me something?” Flávia says, raising an eyebrow. I roll my eyes, but I have to smile. It’s the kind of joke I can imagine Abbu making.

“Seriously, can I?”

“Sure.” She sits up, like she’s ready for a serious question. She makes her face all scrunched up and somber. I have to bite back a smile.

“Why did your mom take you away?” I ask. “Why … didn’t you stay here?”

Flávia’s expression shifts—from mock serious to almost blank. Unreadable. My stomach plummets. I think for a moment that maybe I’ve asked a question that’s way too invasive and now Flávia will be annoyed with me.

But then she says, “I think it was hard for my mom.” She’s looking down at the ground, toeing the dirt with the soles of the regulation black shoes that we all wear as part of our school uniform. “She came here when she was younger, and fell in love with my dad, and she thought that was it. She’d made it. She says Brazil isn’t always an easy place to be in, even though she misses it. After the divorce, I think she just wanted to go somewhere where the fact that her goals had fallen apart didn’t stare her in the face.”

“Oh,” is all I can say. I don’t know why, but I’d never attributed Flávia leaving to something to do with her mom, even though obviously I heard about the divorce. We were a small class so nothing was kept under wraps for too long.

Flávia’s lips quirk into something resembling a smile. “You know, she actually wanted to take me and my sister back to Brazil.”

“Wow.”

“I was all for it.”