I wait in the parking lot for Mom. I don’t want her to go inside and realize that Sal’s off island. She would want to talk to Jonah. Find out how we spend our time at Sal’s. “Watching a television show about clothing?” I imagine her saying. “Is that really the best use of your limited time on this planet?”

So I hop into our truck as soon as Mom pulls up. Her hair is hanging in loose curls around her face. Her wrists are stacked with her favorite bracelets. She’s meeting Sean, the paddleboarder with the tattoos, this afternoon. I saw it written on her calendar right next to “Cove School Picnic.”

“Did you have a nice time with Sal?” she asks.

“Yep,” I say.

“Excited for the picnic?”

“Nope.”

Mom sighs. “This could be your best school year ever, Cove. Stay open to the possibility. I believe in you. I believe that wonderful things are waiting for you.”

Mom could keep this up for the entire drive. I need to change the subject. “Do you know how to sew?” I ask.

“I can barely knit.”

“Do you know how I could learn? Are there classes I can take?”

“I’ve never seen a sign for classes, but I’ll ask around. In return, you need to sign up for something at school. Like an afternoon club or something.”

“A club?”

“Something to help you expand your horizons.”

Something to help you make friends. That’s what she really means. “Fine,” I say. “But only if I can also learn to sew.”

“Agreed,” says Mom. But from the way she smiles and pats my leg, I can tell she’s not concerned with keeping her end of the deal. I look out the window, my mind spinning like the wheels of our truck. Does Jonah seriously think I should apply to Create You, or was he just making a joke? What would it be like if I actually got accepted? How would it feel to walk down the streets of New York City? But then the school building comes into view and my thoughts shift from wonder to dread. I have no idea who I’m going to sit with at the picnic. How I’m going to survive the picnic. How I’m going to survive school. These thoughts drop from my brain to my stomach. I worry that they’re going to explode and splatter all over the truck.

I’ve driven past school all summer long. There’s no way to avoid it. But when we drove past in the summer, I could look the other way, to the skate park across the street. Now, as Mom pulls into the entry circle and stops next to the flagpole, there’s nowhere else to look but the glass double doors with “Martha’s Vineyard Middle School” written above.

“Don’t forget your food,” says Mom as I open the door.

“Mom, I told you. It’s just called a picnic. No one actually eats.”

“The letter from Principal Finnery specifically said to bring food.”

“Fine, I’ll take it. But I’m not going to eat it.”

“Cove, you know how I feel about that kind of wasteful attitude toward—” She stops. Takes a deep breath. “I know it’s going to be hard this year without Nina. But there are so many girls in your grade. Maybe it will be nice to make some new friends. What about that girl Charlotte?”

“Which one?” There are two Charlottes in my grade. Charlotte M. lives on a horse farm in West Tisbury and fills her notebooks with doodles of horse heads. She’s actually pretty good. And horses are not easy; I’ve tried. The problem is Charlotte M. also likes to gallop between classes. She closes her eyes, grabs imaginary reigns, and takes off down the hall with her backpack bouncing. Some kids neigh as she passes, but Nina and I never did. It felt too much like barking.

The other Charlotte, Charlotte L., is kind of friends with Sophie and Amelia, but she mostly hangs out with the girls on her dance team. She always has a pack of bubble gum tape in her backpack, the kind that comes out in a long strip with a sugary smell that you can almost taste. Charlotte L. likes to break off pieces of gum for her friends, then lean back and dangle the biggest piece of all into her own mouth.

“The one who always has bits of hay in her hair,” says Mom.

“That’s Charlotte M.,” I say. “She only wants to hang out with horses.”

“Okay then. The other one.”

“Charlotte L.?” I roll my eyes. “No way.”

“Why not?”

Where do I start? How do I explain to Mom, who believes that each person has a divine spirit inside of them that shines in its uniquely wonderful way, that it’s not as easy as me wanting to be friends with them. It’s not like our spirits jump out of our bodies and hug. There’s other stuff, on the outside. There’s the clothes other girls wear that are clingy and colorful. The bra straps that peek through their tank tops and the fringed bikinis they wear on the beach. The phones they hold in their hands and the backpacks they carry on one shoulder, dangling keychains bouncing up and down with every step. There are the songs they listen to through shared headphones, the pictures they post online, and the videos they watch on YouTube.

There are layers and layers of things. Even if Mom thinks that stuff doesn’t matter, it does.

The only person it didn’t matter to was Nina. But she’s not here anymore. She’s not on this island. She doesn’t go to this school. She’s not at this stupid picnic.

It’s just me.

So I go.

Alone.

I walk around the brick building to the playing fields. From this side I can see my old elementary school. The playground where Nina and I raced to the swings so we could be first on at recess. The sandbox where Matt Lebeki peed in kindergarten and Mr. Rambos, the school janitor, had to shovel the sand into a trash can and bring in a fresh truckload from way out on Cape Poge. I always wondered where Mr. Rambos took the old peed-on sand. Probably South Beach, where the summer people love to boogie board in the waves.

I pass the window to Ms. Bard’s first grade classroom. In first grade we studied geography, and I realized how many different kinds of places there are in the world. Urban. Suburban. Rural. We had a long debate about what Martha’s Vineyard was. Some kids thought it was urban because it has three separate towns. Others thought it was suburban because of the neighborhoods of houses with big yards and bike paths. Most thought it was rural because it has so much rolling farmland and it’s hard to get to.

Then I raised my hand. “It’s everything,” I said. “Everything all in one place and that’s why it’s so special.” Ms. Bard clapped her hands together and I felt proud, like I had figured out something difficult. But now I know better. Martha’s Vineyard is just an island. A piece of land floating in the great big Atlantic Ocean far away from everything else.

I place my bag of food near a side door and walk toward the picnic. Mr. Turner, the gym teacher, is standing behind a folding table and DJing music from his phone. But no one is dancing. A group of boys are playing at the four-square court, pushing one another as they wait in line and making farting noises with their hands. One boy who I’ve never seen before is watching the four-square game from a distance. He takes his hands in and out of the pockets of his jeans, like there’s something inside that he needs to check is still there.

Some girls are sitting at the wooden picnic tables handing tubes of lip gloss back and forth. They pull the wands out of the containers, holding the goopy, glittery sticks up to the light before applying them to their lips. Charlotte L. is with those girls, three wands spread in her hands as if she’s playing go fish and debating her next move. If only Mom could see her now.

I have to figure out where to go. I can’t just stand here. So I try to look around without looking like I’m looking around, which is kind of impossible and makes me regret leaving my food at the door. Opening a bag of kale chips would at least give me something to do.

Sophie and Amelia are off to the side near Mr. Turner. Sophie is standing in her normal tree pose, with her right foot tucked into her left thigh. Amelia is next to Sophie braiding the ends of her hair. Standing with them are Molly and Caroline. Molly and I were partners in theater class last year. We had to pretend to be cats, crawling around stage on our hands and knees. Then Molly got a thumbtack stuck in her hand, and the teacher asked me to walk her to the nurse. Molly cried and squeezed my hand while the nurse poured rubbing alcohol onto her cut. She squeezed so hard that her fingers left white prints on my palm. I wish I could walk over to Molly. But I can’t. It’s like the other girls are a huge stone wall, way too big to climb over.

Still, I start to move closer. Not close enough that they’ll notice me, but close enough that I don’t look like I’m standing all alone. I’m trying to decide exactly where to go when their group shifts. Their heads move closer into a huddle and their shoulders shake a little from giggling. Sophie switches legs, so that now she’s balancing on her right leg with her left foot tucked into her thigh. Amelia unbuttons her jean jacket. Caroline fiddles with the zipper to her sweatshirt. Molly looks over her shoulder.

“One, two, three,” says Amelia. “Do it!”

All four girls take off their top layer at the same time. Underneath they’re wearing matching white shirts with black writing. The shirts from Amelia’s phone. They’re hugging one another and jumping up and down, so at first it’s hard for me to read the words. Then I read them perfectly: STAY AWAY FROM US.

I freeze, unable to take another step. Sophie and Amelia stick their chests forward, as if they’re trying to make the letters look bigger. Caroline holds her zip-up sweatshirt by her side and looks down at the grass. Molly bites the side of her lip. I can’t move. But I also can’t look away.

Amelia notices me. “What?” she asks, smirking.

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

“Thought so,” she says.

“Come on,” says Sophie, linking her arm in Amelia’s. “Let’s find a table. I brought Doritos.”

They walk past me and sit at a wooden picnic table near Charlotte L. and those girls. Molly and Caroline follow. At first it seems like the only other person who noticed what just happened is the boy with his hands in his pockets. Which makes sense because he’s the only other person standing alone. He rolls his eyes. He kicks the grass with the toe of his boot. Mr. Turner puts on a different song, this one with a faster beat. The boys shove one another in the four-square line. The girls pass their lip gloss.

But then, slowly, things start to get quiet. The teachers who had only minutes before been standing and laughing in tight groups, arms crossed and glasses dangling from chains around their necks, begin to tap one another on the shoulders. The thud of the ball hitting the cement four-square court stops. Mr. Turner turns off the music, as if maybe that will help him to understand what’s going on. Sophie, Amelia, Caroline, and Molly pretend they don’t notice the quiet. But that’s impossible.

It’s so quiet you can hear the crunch of each Dorito chip.

It’s so quiet you can hear Charlotte L.’s lip gloss roll across the wooden table.

It’s the most quiet a picnic has ever been.

Principal Finnery emerges from somewhere behind me. She’s wearing strappy beige sandals with tiny heels that sink into the grass. But she’s moving so fast and pumping her arms with such purpose that it looks like she’s marching. “Would someone care to tell me what’s going on here?” she says to Sophie and Amelia’s table.

They look down at their laps. The only movement is Molly slowly licking orange Dorito dust off her fingers, one by one. Then Amelia raises her head and says softly, “Nothing.”

“This doesn’t look like nothing,” says Principal Finnery. “This looks like the opposite of nothing.”

“We’re not doing anything,” says Amelia. She elbows Sophie in the side.

“Yeah,” mumbles Sophie.

“I’m not referring to what you’re doing. I’m referring to what you’re wearing. May I see those shirts?”

Amelia turns her body to face Principal Finnery. The crowd that has gathered shifts in one giant blob to see the shirts more clearly. The boy with his hands in his pockets, who is still standing a distance away, is the only one who doesn’t move.

“Stay. Away. From. Us. Am I reading this correctly?” asks Principal Finnery. No one answers. “Where did you girls get these? And what in the world makes you think they’re acceptable to wear to a school function?”

“Online,” says Amelia. “And they don’t say anything bad. There aren’t bad words or anything.”

“Yes, I understand that, Amelia. But the spirit of the words is a different story. Please cover those up immediately, before this goes any further.”

“But that’s not fair,” says Amelia. “We bought these with our own money. We’re allowed to wear what we—”

Principal Finnery holds up one finger and Amelia gives a defeated sigh. The girls put their jackets and sweatshirts back on. But there’s something in their faces, a tightness in their eyes and lips, that lets me know this is not the end.

It’s only the beginning.