This island, Wiki also tells me, holds the grim distinction of being the place where America’s disgusting Japanese internment began but is described now as “twenty-seven square miles of land, much of it untouched forest, marked by thirty-two miles of trails, and farms and fields, and rocky shoreline.” And houses and some schools. And now me.

Our line moved, and Joellen parked in the ferry’s belly full of cars. It felt like driving on water. She led me up two flights of steps in a metal stairwell to the top deck, and we leaned together over the rail in the cold sea air and sunshine, Joellen wrapped in a blue down jacket, her short curls moving like mown lawn, me taller beside her in forgettable jeans and T-shirt, straight brown hair whipping around dark eyes in my nondescript white face. The ferry sailed from the dock, and Ivar’s Fish Bar, the Ferris wheel, the Space Needle—all of Seattle—grew smaller on the horizon, water churning in the ferry’s white wake. I breathed in the brackish sea air and tried to absorb the beauty of the water reflecting the summer sky, and the skyline, and I tried to exist in the moment, but electric nervous heat squeezed my heart.

“You can ferry back for a visit whenever; just call and I’ll pick you up,” Joellen said, and then, for the gazillionth time, “I’m sorry. I tried so hard to find something in the city—”

“I know,” I said, and almost added, It’s okay, even though it wasn’t.

“There’s just nothing for you right now. I mean, there’s hotels, but I’m not doing that to you. Not one bed in a house in all of Seattle, and I wanted—”

“Jo.”

“Muir.”

Her let’s have a talk tone. I love Joellen. I don’t love talks.

“I need you to try,” she said. “It’s only twelve months. Think of it in weeks or hours, count them down, mark them off, do what you have to, but you’ve got to stay put. One house. Senior year matters for college, or just…for life. It’s important. You need to concentrate, no moving around, just this last one school. Please. For me.”

She barely ever pulls the “for me” line. Maybe never. Everything is always for me.

“I already said okay,” I snapped, and instantly felt bad. “I will. I’ll try.”

“Okay, but I mean really try hard. Universities love a solid senior year.”