I walked to my car alone.

When there were pep rallies and everyone spilled out onto the field afterward to take pictures with their families, screaming each other’s names and swapping hugs, I would stand a few feet off to the side and take out my phone and scroll through nothing at all, my face arranged into the expression of a person who has somewhere better to be, so that no one would come over and ask if I was okay, because I did not have it in me to lie out loud that many times in a row.

That is the word I kept coming back to, in those months, lying awake.

Island.