And so this thirty-minute school lunch was the most eventful and terrifying I’d ever experienced. I felt like crying. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do this; I could never stay an entire year in one place—already I was on the principal’s radar, and not only that, with one lie my potential friendship with Kira was over. Joellen was right; lying punches holes in your boat, and the truth is the ocean, rushing in fast as Francine walked to us. Her face brightened the nearer she came, and Kira went to hug her.

“Hello, my darling.” Francine gathered Kira in her arms, and then she saw me. “Muiriel! I was just talking to the principal, and you’re all set for Salishwood. Kira, are you two eating lunch together? Hey, Sean!”

Kira was wide-eyed at me. “How have you already met everyone on this island? Francine is my aunt! Friend-aunt.”

“I’ve changed this girl’s diapers!” Francine bragged.

“Okay,” Kira said “Trying to eat here…”

Holy hell.

“Hey, Francine,” Sean said.

“Sean’s mom is a dear friend,” Francine said to my likely ashen face. She turned to Kira. “When did you and Muiriel meet?”

“Weeks ago,” Kira said. “When did you two meet?”

Francine looked to me, and her face changed. She caught up. But too late.

“I’m living with her,” I said, back on the brutal-truth-no-reason-for-lying rails. “She’s my foster. Person.”

Sean watched Kira’s face. Then mine.

Francine looked miserable.

I smoothed my paper lunch bag on the table with intense focus, folding it into crisp, perfect squares, smaller and tighter with each crease. Senior year, about to fall over the finish line unattached and self-sufficient, and now what was I doing with all these people? I cared that Kira would hate me for lying, that she would now disappear from my orbit because I’m in foster care and lied about it. I would never see her again, and I would miss her; it would matter.

Have friends, but don’t “life or death” depend on them. Go out but not date; fostered, never adopted.

Emotional energy normally reserved solely for work, school, and gearing up to live on my own would be spent mourning the loss of a friendship I was already liking so much that I was starting flame wars with dumb-ass, run-of-the-mill mean girls? Giving a shit what this Sean guy thinks of me and agreeing to go to a movie with him? Why was I sabotaging my own exit plan?

“Muiriel,” Kira said. “You know what this means?”

I folded the paper bag into the last, tightest square. “Nope.”

She took the paper from my tense hands. “We’re like…cousins!”

What.

“Francine,” Sean said, still looking from me to Kira and back to me—looking out for me—“want to see a picture of a marmot trying to steal my granola?”