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to create that patty out of millet and wheat. Food is scarce. Asku has told me, through Noah, that the island is struggling. The population is dwindling. He and his wife are trying to have a baby, and can’t. Asku is teaching me some of his native tongue while I teach him English. We start small and simple. I name an object, and then he does the same. He laughs when I say both the words he does, and the English versions. “Bowl,” he repeats after me, and then bursts into giggles.
    At night, Noah and I sit underneath the stars. Tonight is warm, and the moon is so full the beach is lit up. It reflects against the water until the entire ocean looks like liquid silver. I’m stretched out in the sand, and Noah lies next to me. I can feel his breathing, catch the rise and fall of his chest. We’re talking about family, and I ask about his parents. He’s never told me before what really happened. Ed was the one who said Noah’s dad was drunk, that his parents swerved into oncoming traffic.
    â€œI just remember being at Ed’s,” he said. “And his parents telling me I couldn’t go home.”
    I flip up onto my elbow to face him. His blond hair has gotten longer since we’ve been here and is now in even stronger contrast to the tribesmen—a difference made possible by his blond-haired, blue-eyed mother. “Everyone always said I took after her,” Noah told me last week. “Ironic now, huh?”
    â€œI don’t remember it,” I say. “The accident. I mean, we knew each other then.”
    â€œWe were young,” he says. “Ten. It was a long time ago.”
    â€œYou never talk about it,” I say.
    â€œI don’t really know what to say. Sometimes I feel like I never even knew them.”
    I think about my mom. How cancer made her different in the end. How it wasn’t really her anymore. It’s hard to remember what moments to hold on to. “I know,” I say.
    Noah rolls over to face me. “It’s the past,” he says.
    He holds my gaze and something passes between us—the knowledge that he’s not talking about just our parents, but maybe everything. Our whole life might be there now, too. In the past. A place we can no longer get back to.
    â€œEd would always tell me not to talk to you about it,” I say. “He wanted to protect you.”
    Noah smiles, but it’s small, sad. “He was always doing that. Even when I didn’t want it. He wanted to protect both of us. He thought he could.”
    I nod. I think, again, about the fight I saw the two of them have, but before I can ask Noah about it, he reaches his hand across to my shoulder. My breathing stills. My whole body feels like it’s on red alert.
    â€œCan I ask you something?” he says.
    I swallow.
    â€œWhy weren’t you sitting with him?”
    It takes a moment for me to realize that he’s talking about the plane. How Ed was up front, next to Maggie, and I wasn’t with them. I flip onto my back. His hand falls. I look up at the stars. “We got into a fight,” I say. As the words come out, I feel the familiar knot in my stomach, the one that winds like a rope all the way up to my heart. “It was my fault.”
    â€œWhat happened?” Noah’s voice is at my ear. Soft. Understanding.
    â€œHe want—” I catch myself, not sure which tense to use. “He wants to go to the same school, and I—” I exhale. I blink back tears. “I didn’t want to talk about it then.”
    I sit up. Sand pours off my back. “You know Ed; he’s such a planner. He has everything figured out.”
    Noah smiles. His blue eyes light up in the sand. “I know,” he says. “He always goes after what he wants. Do you remember class president?”
    I laugh, thinking about how Ed went after the leading office the second we got to high school. EDUCATION , as the flyers read. There was