The guidance counselor flipped through my file like it was a flip-book of poor decisions. Her eyebrows shot up. “Fifteen schools in eight years,” she said, peering at me over reading glasses that hung on a beaded chain. “Wow.”

I gave her my practiced smile, perfected somewhere between schools seven and eight: warm enough to deflect concern, cool enough to discourage follow‑ups. “My dad calls it aggressive tourism,” I said. The line usually got a laugh. It was easier than unpacking the look my parents got every few months, the Zillow tabs that reproduced like rabbits on Mom’s laptop, the vague “work opportunity” Dad mentioned just before I started keeping my life in a state of carry‑on readiness.

She leaned forward, chair squeaking. “Well, West Grove High is thrilled to have you. For a little while.” She winced. “Or for the rest of your high school career. Drama just won regionals and debate—”

“Could I just get my schedule?” I asked gently. If you let them run the brochure script, they expected you to join things. She handed me the paper: AP English, Calc, Chem, Comp Sci, History, PE. The same first three chapters I’d taken in three zip codes.

“Your first class is in Building C,” she said, tracing a path on a smudged campus map. “We can assign a buddy—”

“I’m good, thanks.” The buddy system was just a guided tour of bathrooms and questions I didn’t want to answer.

I walked to Building C reading a hallway the way I’d learned to read cities: not by signs, by patterns. The middle row in class is camouflage, not too eager, not too gone. Mr. Rodriguez clocked the new kid and decided not to make it a thing. Bless that man. Three teachers did make it a thing: state your name, where you’re from, one interesting fact; “I’ve been to fifteen schools” did the trick. One teacher didn’t look up. Two handed me ancient textbooks with other people’s names inside—temporal ghosts I felt weirdly close to. The cafeteria offered pizza that looked like a police sketch of pizza. I sat at the windows by the parking lot—safe Switzerland—and unwrapped the lunch I’d brought. Always bring your own until you learn which hot foods are not a dare. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy lay open on the table. Reading is a portable force field. It says I am busy. It says I chose this.

A shadow fell over my page.

“Absolutely not,” a girl said. She had the kind of messy bun that takes twenty minutes and a social posture that said she’d never checked a map to figure out where to sit. Leggings, oversized sweatshirt, pristine white sneakers: the West Grove uniform.

“Excuse me?” I tried confused enough to disarm.

“You’re eating lunch with us,” she declared, as if she’d just passed legislation. “I saw you yesterday with your sad desk salad—”

“I wasn’t here yesterday,” I said, because accuracy is a reflex.

“Whatever. You were tragic today. Same difference. Come on.” She reached toward my book and I flinched because nobody touches the book.

“I’m good here, thanks,” I said. “This is a really good part.”

She glanced at the cover. “Hitchhiker’s Guide. Oh my God, Mia quotes those constantly. It’s endearing and extremely annoying.” She studied me. “I’m Katie. You’re eating lunch with us. This isn’t a negotiation.”

It wasn’t. Not because she dragged me—she never touched me—but because the force of her insistence made resistance feel like more work than compliance. I gathered my lunch and my book and followed her across the cafeteria like a reluctant duckling.

Her table was middle‑tier territory: not the jocks’ cathedral windows, not exile by the trash cans. Two girls sat there—one buried in a stats book, the other building an ambitious structure out of fries.

“This is—” Katie paused, realizing she’d kidnapped me without getting my name.

“Sarah,” I supplied.

“This is Sarah,” she continued smoothly. “She was sitting alone reading, which is basically a cry for help. Sarah, this is Mia.” Stats Girl waved. “And Sophie.” French Fry Architect beamed.

“Oh my God, new girl,” Sophie squealed. An actual squeal, a YA novel sound I didn’t think existed in the wild. “I love your vibe. Very mysterious. Spy or poetry. Are you a spy? You can tell us. We’re excellent at secrets. I’m terrible at secrets. But Mia is good at them.”

“I’m not a spy,” I said, since apparently we were doing this.

“That’s exactly what a spy would say,” Sophie nodded sagely. “We’re keeping her,” she told Katie.

They had bracelets. Not store‑bought: embroidery floss, frayed from wear, the kind you make at camp or on living room floors. Summer woven into your skin.

“We’ve been a trio since fourth grade,” Mia said, catching my glance. Quiet observation radiated off her. “Sophie convinced us to sneak out during indoor recess to build a snow fort. We got detention. We’ve been inseparable since.”

“It was an excellent snow fort,” Sophie said. “Structurally sound. Siege‑ready.”

I tried to picture fourth grade with the same people, braces to breakup to driver’s ed. The longest friendship I’d maintained was six months and three time zones ago. We still liked each other’s posts. That’s an algorithm, not a bond.

“We need a fourth for our Halloween costume,” Sophie said suddenly. “We’re doing the Plastics. Katie is Gretchen—anxiety. I’m Karen—obvious reasons. Mia is Cady—math. You’re tall, so you’re Regina.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ll still be here by Halloween,” I said, aiming for breezy, hitting tragic.

Sophie gasped so dramatically nearby tables turned. She grabbed my hands, fry‑greasy fingers and all. “Oh my God, are you suicidal?” she stage‑whispered. “Katie, she’s suicidal. I have the hotline saved because I once called it thinking it was DoorDash—long story—but they were very nice.”

“What? No.” My face burned. “I’ve been to fifteen schools. We move constantly. I meant I probably won’t physically be here.”

“Oh,” Sophie said, recalibrating. “Wait—fifteen schools in eight years? So that means—” She counted on her fingers, ran out, started over. “Twenty‑three?!”

“That’s not how math works,” Mia said gently.

“Math is a social construct,” Sophie said with dignity.

Katie looked at me, fierce. “Bold of you to assume we’d let you leave without being Regina George.”

The bell saved me from answering. Before I could escape, Katie plucked my phone out of my hand and added herself. “Now you’re stuck with us,” she said. “Resistance is futile.”

“That’s Star Trek,” Mia murmured.

“Whatever, nerd. Same genre.”

What I expected next was what always came next: two weeks of polite acquaintance, then my inevitable fade. What happened instead was a campaign.

Katie texted every morning to coordinate “complimentary, not matching” outfits. She popped up at my locker with intel: “Mr. Peterson is in a mood; avoid eye contact,” or “Edible food in the cafeteria today. Documented miracle.” Sophie chimed in with observations that swung from unhinged to profound. “The janitor arranges the wet floor signs like haiku,” she said one day. Another: “What if dogs know they’re good boys but are humble about it?”

Mia slid into seats beside me with an extra pen or gum—offerings that translated to I thought of you. She explained calculus with story problems starring tacos and catapults. “Imagine Sophie builds a trebuchet to launch tacos into space,” she began, completely serious. “Trajectory is parabolic.”

One afternoon Mia handed me a tiny pot with a green rosette. “Echeveria,” she said, placing it on my desk. “You can’t kill them. Trust me, I’ve tried. It once survived under my bed all summer. They’re the Nokia of plants.”

Sophie added me to their group chat—Forever Sophomores, even though we were juniors. “We tried to change it,” Katie said, “but Sophie had a meltdown about losing the archive.”

“There are three years of quality memes in there,” Sophie said. “And the video of Katie falling off the stage. That’s historical record.”

The chat was a fire hose of history: inside jokes, middle school photos with orthodontic smiles and Justice tees, references to Ms. Burke’s cursed field trip and The Great Detention of 8th Grade. I had pictures too, but they were a patchwork quilt—different faces, different gyms, me smiling in a hundred gyms I never learned the names of. Katie sent TikToks at 2 a.m. captioned us next year and when we’re seniors and college road trip vibes. I hearted them and sent laughing crying emojis and pretended they didn’t feel like small paper cuts across skin I’d kept numb on purpose.

Three weeks in, I made the mistake of caring. It happened gradually, then all at once. I helped Sophie wrestle The Great Gatsby into something that wasn’t a personal vendetta against green lights. I let Mia paint my nails “existential crisis purple.” I looked forward to Katie’s morning check‑ins.

We were at Katie’s house allegedly studying for Chem, actually eating raw cookie dough and stalking Brad’s perm on Instagram. Katie’s room was Fairy‑Light Chic, Polaroids clustering on one wall like a mood board. The predictability of it made me feel steadier than I wanted to admit.

“Oh my God,” Sophie gasped, showing us her phone. “Brad got a perm. Like my mom in 1987.”

“Let me see,” Katie demanded, then shrieked. “No. That’s a felony.”

“It’s real,” Mia said, pulling up corroborating Stories. “Multiple sources confirm.”

I laughed. Real laughed. The kind that makes your stomach hurt and your eyes water. For a second I forgot to be temporary.

Katie’s mom knocked, head in the doorway, smile that said she’d heard the shriek and decided we were adorable. “Tacos for dinner?”

“I should go,” I said, auto‑pilot.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Chen said. “I always make too much. Besides, Katie’s told me so much about you.”

“All good things,” Katie said quickly.

“Of course,” her mom said. “She says you might be with us for Thanksgiving.”

Silence. Katie held her breath.

“Oh—um—I’ll probably be in a different time zone,” I said, aiming for joke, landing on bruise.

“Well, the invitation stands,” Mrs. Chen said. “You’re always welcome.”

After she left, Katie turned to me. “Intervention.” She herded Mia and Sophie into a whisper huddle and then they formed a semicircle like a benevolent cult.

“You are not allowed to pre‑break up with us,” Katie said.

“Pre‑break up?” I asked, though I wrote the manual.

Mia nodded. “Ending before the end. It’s like eating dessert first but sad. You wear a band‑aid in case of a cut and end up living like you’re bleeding.”

“Besides,” Sophie said, “my cousin moved to Germany and we still send her memes. Distance is just a number.”

“That’s not—” Mia started.

“It’s metaphysics,” Sophie said, proud.

Katie sat next to me, close enough to smell vanilla body spray, the perfume of every girlhood sleepover. “I get it,” she said, voice serious. “Moving sucks. Starting over sucks. But you know what sucks more? Never actually starting because you’re so scared of the ending.”

“You sound like a poster,” I said. My voice betrayed me.

“Good. I’ll put it over a sunset in cursive.”

I walked home after tacos and a volcano science project that erupted all over Mrs. Chen’s kitchen and half of us. The streets were quiet in that manicured‑suburb way: porch lights, barking dogs, a Santa inflatable cohabiting with a Halloween skeleton on one lawn because the calendar is a suggestion here.

Mom sat at the kitchen table with Zillow open like a wound. Portland. Seattle. Places where coffee is a religion and flannel is a uniform. My stomach dropped. The reflex kicked in: sort, detach, ghost.

Instead, I sat down.

“The drama teacher assumed I’d be here,” I said, casual as weather. “She gave me Heathers audition forms. Deadline in January.” I slid the crumpled papers across the table like a dare.

Mom’s fingers froze. Something flashed in her face—hope or fear or both. “You want to audition?” she asked, like she was defusing a bomb.

I shrugged. My heart sprinted. “Maybe.”

“David?” she called. Dad emerged from his office, the same desk lamp we’ve unpacked in twelve rentals behind him, the Disneyland photo of seven‑year‑old me grinning like permanence was a given. They did the married‑people micro‑conversation. Usually that look meant: which U‑Haul company is cheapest, how do we time the lease, what lie do we tell her so it hurts less. This time it meant something else.

“We could…” Dad started, stopped, started again. “We could look at houses here.” The words hung in the air like a spell. “To buy,” he added, as if the syllables might break.

I stared. “Buy as in mortgage and property taxes and metal numbers on the porch?”

“I’ve been remote for two years,” Dad admitted, almost sheepish. “We…thought you liked exploring.”

“Exploring?” It came out a laugh‑cry. “I thought you were commitment‑phobic nomads with a flannel fetish.”

Mom closed her laptop slowly, like closing a chapter. “We thought moving helped. Every time you shut down, stopped trying, we thought a fresh start would fix it. New school, clean slate.”

The irony slapped me. “I shut down because we moved. Why make friends if I’m going to leave? Why join anything I won’t finish? Why care when caring makes it hurt?”

“Oh, honey,” Mom said, and the dam broke. Eight years of almost‑goodbyes, fifteen schools’ worth of hello‑I‑am‑fine. Dad hugged me like I was six and the floor was lava and his arms the only furniture. “We are literally a self‑fulfilling prophecy of unnecessary relocation trauma,” he said into my hair.

“Did you just diagnose us?” I asked, muffled.

“I read parenting blogs,” he said. “Apparently stability in adolescence is…crucial.”

“Apparently fifteen schools is not…normal,” I sniffed.

“Touche.”

We stayed up until midnight looking at houses. Not Seattle. Not Portland. West Grove. I learned to say it as one word instead of two. Mom had saved listings “just in case,” which made me wonder how long she’d been orbiting this decision. “This one has original hardwood,” she said about a blue Victorian. “We’re already in the district,” I said. “Right. Property values,” she recovered.

“Mom, did you just say property values?” I asked. “You once moved us three times in one year because the ‘vibe’ was off.”

“That was a phase,” she said.

“Our whole life was a phase,” I said, smiling.

The next morning I told Katie. She created a Pinterest board called “Sarah’s Room Aesthetic” within ten minutes. “We can’t just BE staying without designing your entire existence,” she said, pinning string lights and a neon sign that said GOOD VIBES ONLY.

“We haven’t bought a house,” I said.

“Details,” she said. “Emergency friend meeting. We need plans.” Sophie produced a planner I didn’t know she owned and started a list of “essential experiences Sarah must retroactively have,” including “winter formal throw‑up story,” “Mr. Peterson’s Shakespeare humiliation,” and “lake weekend mythology.” Mia quietly enrolled us in SAT prep and wrote the dates in pen on my calendar like an exorcism.

We saw split‑levels and colonials, ranches and tutors. Sophie came to one showing and declared the house “haunted by a nice cookie‑baking grandma.” The realtor looked scared. We kept looking.

We found it on a rainy Sunday Mom took a wrong turn. A yellow craftsman with a porch swing and a climbable tree. “Stop,” I said. “Our house.” There wasn’t even a For Sale sign. The owners were “thinking about it.” The universe apologized for eight years in that living room. “It needs work,” the owner warned.

“Everything does,” Dad said, looking at me.

We made an offer that night. While we waited, Katie threw a “Sarah’s Staying” party, which was just us eating pizza in her basement and making plans that stretched past June. Sophie built a PowerPoint titled “Join Track With Me” (slide 1: cute uniforms; slide 2: friendship cardio). Mia set up a shared Google calendar to August. On August 15 she wrote “Sarah’s 1‑year stayingversary” and added thirty hearts.

“That’s not a word,” I told her.

“It is now,” she said. “Urban Dictionary will back me up.”

The offer was accepted on a Tuesday in Chem. Mom texted seventeen house emojis. Katie screamed. Mr. Rodriguez threatened detention for “unsafe jubilation.” Sophie climbed on a cafeteria chair at lunch and announced, “Sarah is staying.”

“Everyone knows,” Mia said. “You told the bus driver.”

“Some truths bear repeating,” Sophie said, sitting down primly. “It’s like Romeo and Juliet if they lived and also it’s friends.”

“That’s not what star‑crossed means,” Mia said.

“It means whatever I need it to,” Sophie said. “Shakespeare is dead.”

We moved into the yellow house two weeks before Christmas. I hung a photo of the four of us in ridiculous Halloween costumes we’d staged in November because Katie wanted the documentation, even out of order. In it, I was looking straight at the camera—genuinely, uncomplicatedly happy.

“For your wall,” Katie said. “The wall you’ll have for more than a month.”

“You’re the worst,” I said, already planning where to put it.

“We’re the best,” Sophie corrected. “And you’re stuck with us until the heat death of the universe.”

“That’s…long,” I said.

“Not long enough,” Katie said, hugging me like she was anchoring something.

That night in my room, boxes still in corners, I did something I hadn’t done in eight years. I hung the poster from school number three—the one I’d carried from trunk to trunk. It was faded, pockmarked from a lifetime of thumbtacks. It was mine. It was home.

Mom found me alphabetizing my books on built‑ins. “You okay?” she asked, sitting on my bed—the one we put under the window because we could try things and keep them.

“Yeah,” I said. “Good weird.”

She exhaled. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For all the moves. We thought we were helping. Fresh starts. Clean slates.”

“I know,” I said. Parents make their worst mistakes out of love like it’s their job. “We’re here now.”

“We’re here now,” she said back.

The next morning I woke in the same bed I fell asleep in, in the same town, with the novelty of knowing tomorrow would be the same. It should have felt like a trap. It felt like finally exhaling.

Mrs. Pensit called me in after winter break. “How are you settling?” she asked.

“Plot twist,” I said. “I’m actually…settling. We bought a house.”

She clapped her hands together. “And Heathers?”

“Katie convinced me. Mia bribed me with math help. Sophie promised me a tiny hamburger keychain for luck.”

“Not a plot twist,” she said, sliding a thicker file toward herself. “Character development.” She pulled out a new page, wrote our address in tidy script, and began removing transfer notes. “Looks like you won’t be needing these.”

“No,” I said. “I won’t.”

We missed Halloween because arriving late to the party is my brand, but Katie insisted we do it anyway. Mia put on a red wig, Sophie perfected Karen’s weather report, and I leaned into aggressive pink. We took photos in Katie’s yard and posted them backdated because Katie bends time.

“Everyone will know,” I said.

“Who cares?” she said. “We know.”

Snow came early. Sophie banged on my door at 7 a.m. with a sled. “Tradition,” she declared. “First snow: sledding, snowman, hot chocolate until we’re sick, questionable holiday movie.” On the hill behind school, Katie provided play‑by‑play, Mia built a structurally sound snowman with load‑bearing branches, and Sophie crashed into a bush and declared victory anyway. Back at Katie’s, Mrs. Chen’s hot chocolate made from actual chocolate reset my whole childhood. We watched a prince switch places with a baker and it didn’t matter. What mattered were the three bodies on the couch tangled with mine, the collective groan at the kiss, the way I fit into the pile like I had always been there.

“Next year we ski,” Katie said.

“I don’t ski,” I said.

“You’ll learn,” she said. “We have time.”

Auditions happened after break under fluorescent lights and terror. Sophie gave me the burger keychain. Katie coached me into “Dead Girl Walking” approximately nine thousand times. Mia sat in a corner with flashcards and whispered, “You’re good,” after every run‑through. I got Heather McNamara, which was perfect: bright colors, backup vocals, belonging without pressure.

Sophie screamed so loud when the list went up that Mr. Peterson checked the hall for casualties. “My best friend is a Heather!” she announced.

“Technically a Heather,” Mia said.

“All Heathers are valid,” Sophie said, hand over heart.

Rehearsals filled January, February, March. Katie made a Google calendar that color‑coded our lives through summer. August 15: Sarah’s stayingversary. “Still not a word,” I said. “Says who?” she said. “I’ll petition Merriam‑Webster.”

Spring unrolled the way seasons do in places with real winters: slowly, then all at once. Mom’s garden plans turned into dirt under her nails and a seed catalog on the table next to our mortgage statement. The musical played to three full houses in May. My parents sat in the front row all three nights. “We have eight years of missed programs to collect,” Dad said, camera strap around his neck like a penitent tourist. Katie, Mia, and Sophie claimed third row center every night because they had charted optimal sightlines.

On closing, they handed me a potted plant. “So it lasts,” Sophie said. “Like us.”

“It’s a succulent,” Mia added. “Basically immortal.”

“The metaphor stands,” Sophie said.

The cast party was at Katie’s, because of course it was. We ate Costco cupcakes and shouted the wrong lyrics to “Seventeen” and took blurry pictures that would look better with time. I sat on the couch where Katie had first banned me from pre‑breakups and thought about the girl who’d walked into Building C invisible on purpose.

“You know what’s weird?” I asked Katie as people trickled out.

“Brad’s perm is still holding?” she said.

“I used to be good at leaving,” I said. “Like professional. Now I’m…bad at it.”

“Now you suck at leaving,” she corrected, grinning. “Congratulations.”

“I couldn’t if I tried,” I said. “I have succulents. I have a favorite bathroom. I have…a seat.”

“The permanentest,” Sophie said solemnly, popping a sprinkle into her mouth.

“Want a secret?” Katie said. “When I met you, you looked half gone. Like you were already scanning for exits. I thought, absolutely not. Not on my watch.”

“Aggressively caring,” I said.

“It’s my brand.”

Almost a year to the day after I met Mrs. Pensit, I went back. Not to transfer out. To apply to be a peer mentor—senior year, here, at this school. “New students,” I said when she asked why. “Especially the ones who look like they’re rehearsing their goodbye.”

“I think you’ll be perfect,” she said, and for once the word didn’t make me itchy.

On my way out, a kid sat in the waiting chair with the practiced indifference of a refugee from somewhere else. I recognized the armor because I’d welded mine with the same tools.

“First day?” I asked.

They nodded, wary.

“It gets better,” I said. “I know everybody says that. But also—avoid the pizza. It’s…conceptual.”

They almost smiled.

“I’m Sarah,” I said. “I’ve been to fifteen schools. This one’s my favorite.”

“Why?” they asked, maybe to be polite, maybe because they needed one reason to try.

“Because I stayed long enough to find out,” I said, and walked toward the cafeteria where Katie was texting WHERE ARE YOU, Sophie was declaring tacos salads in disguise, and Mia was having an existential crisis about iceberg. Save me a seat, I typed.

As if I needed to ask.

My locker door was a collage of permanence: a magnetic mirror, musical photos, Sophie’s Post‑it—You’re pretty :)—a senior parking pass for a car I didn’t have, and in the center the too‑late Halloween photo of four girls laughing at nothing because together makes everything funny. Home, I’d learned, wasn’t a dot on Zillow. It was people who refused to let you disappear, who made plans that assumed your presence, who bought you plants you couldn’t kill and added you to three years of history you didn’t live but now belonged to. Home was this hallway and that table and a seat with my name on it.

For the first time in sixteen schools, I wasn’t planning my goodbye. I was planning everything after.