And then came middle school.

It was about four days into seventh grade when Kai Boyd, a short, sporty boy with a smattering of freckles across his nose (they gave his face a misleading innocence), approached me.

“Hey, Swallow.”

“Hey.”

“So . . . do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Swallow?”

Unfortunately, my naivete resulted in an honest answer. “Uh . . . yeah. Of course. Everyone does.”

“She does!” he shrieked. “She swallows!”

Maple Dunn was kind enough to explain my answer in a detailed, sexualized context. That’s when I shortened my name to Low (and, possibly, lost interest in sex). My parents were hurt by my rejection of the highly meaningful moniker they had chosen for me.

“Swallows are tiny little birds capable of great feats,” my father said. “Just like you.”

“You can’t change to please other people,” my mom added. “Do you want to live your life as a conformist?”

But I wasn’t tiny or capable of greatness. And I certainly wasn’t a conformist. (If I had been, I would have had more friends.) In the end, my parents understood my decision, but insisted on calling me Swallow when we were at home. I grudgingly allowed it. Mika Minty was now crossing the stage to a chorus of cheers from her popular friends and polite, supportive applause from her parents and brother. With the alphabetical roll call, I knew I would be next. I was prepared for the snickers and whispers. While the kids who had grown up with me already knew my full name, the others didn’t.

“Swallow Morrison.”

As I stood, a male voice rang out from behind me.

“And she does!”

There was a chorus of gasps and titters, stern looks from the school administrators on the stage. My face burned with anger and embarrassment as I moved toward our principal. All I needed now was for my multitude of parental figures to make a show of themselves, and my humiliation would be complete.

I heard a whistle—the shrill, two-fingers-in-the-mouth kind. To my knowledge, no one in my family possessed that skill. Looking into the crowd, I saw her. Freya was standing, smiling, clapping. Everyone saw her—beautiful in a summer dress topped with a jeans jacket, her blond hair gleaming in the faint glow of overhead pot lights. This cool, beautiful, stylish woman was cheering for me: tall, friendless Swallow Morrison.

“Go, Low!” she cried, and I couldn’t help but smile. I felt special, cool . . . chosen. (A month later, when we received the photo of Mr. Graph handing me my diploma, I was beaming.)

Eventually, we got through the roll and our principal announced that we were all high school graduates. My classmates tossed their mortarboards into the air. I abstained because my ceremonial cap had to be pinned securely to my bushel of hair with barrettes and bobby pins. As my peers gathered their headpieces, I hurried off the stage and out of the gymnasium.

Outside, parents and guests milled about in the parking lot, huddling together in the June downpour. In the Pacific Northwest, it was not uncommon for May to offer beautiful warm weather, only to be followed by an unseasonable blast of winter in June. Juneuary, people called it, like it was clever and not just ripped off from some corny weatherman. It was difficult to find my family amid the sea of umbrellas, but I spotted them clustered under an overhang. My mom was deep in conversation with Freya.