“I wanted to be Indiana Jones when I was little so I guess I see what you mean.”

She bit back a smile. “What about now? Have you thought at all about what you’re gonna do after school?”

I shrugged and turned to face the ocean, drawing my knees up to my chest. It wasn’t cold but I felt a chill course through me, as I often did when Connie and I spoke about the future. We rarely spoke about college or work at all but those few conversations about how we envisioned the rest of our lives were always rather stilted and tense. Neither of us were particularly willing to discuss how we saw our futures playing out, and I was never sure if that was because we feared to talk on it or because we simply didn’t know.

The future frightened me—not quite as much as birds did, but more than anything else I had encountered so far. We both knew better than to talk about it when all it would do would drive a wedge between us and force us to think about things we couldn’t bear to dwell on for too long—what we were, how we saw this ending. What would come next. I barely thought, even on my own, about what I planned to do after school.

Connie might not have spoken very much about what she wanted from life but I knew she had the ambition and the drive to actually make something of herself. I knew she wanted to live a life that was meaningful and sincere. Her dreams were never of a husband and a sheltered home, much as that might have been her reality. That wasn’t to say she didn’t appreciate her wealth—I doubted very much that she would have traded that for anything in the world. But when I looked at Connie, I saw a girl who despised the shallow lifestyle that awaited her, who wanted something more than what she would get—even if she had no idea what exactly it was that she wanted.

“I don’t know,” I responded eventually, and realized Connie was no longer looking at me. Her eyes were on the horizon once again and they were hard now, her forehead creased into sharp lines. “I think I’ll leave here. I’ve always figured I’ll just move away after school. I’m not sure I’d like to go to college straight away. Or ever, really.”

“Where would you go?”

“To London, maybe. I’ve always wanted to go to London. Things are different over there, you know—they’d be different for me.”

“But you don’t want to go to college? What about all your books and your nerding?”

“Honestly, I’ve always just considered it a waste,” I shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll end up going to college eventually. But why would I go now, when I’ve no idea what I want to do? Why would I spend all that money on a degree I’m not even sure I’ll need? Money I don’t even have. I’d like to live a little, first. Figure myself out. The only thing I know for certain is that I don’t want to stay at home any longer than I have to.”