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hands and Haven followed her mother and Noah out of the office building.
    “There, now,” said her mother, “that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
    Haven had already started to pull away for fear one of her friends would see her talking to a strange lady. “Yeah, it was great, Mom. I’ll see you when I get home.”
    “Bye, Haven!” said Noah. He waved his toy car in the air in farewell. Haven’s mother held his hand and steered him toward the parking lot.
    “Bye, Noah,” said Haven quietly.
    She smiled as he continued to wave his car in the air long after he said goodbye. Her smile quickly faded when she thought about the meeting and how it made her feel like everyone was talking about her as if she barely existed. A lot of times it seemed like her parents regarded her more as a way to gauge their own progress than as someone who might actually have a problem with the way everything was going in her life.
    Haven walked around the corner of the administration building and headed toward the cafeteria.
    George Walker High School in Scottsdale, Arizona, had no interior hallways. The buildings stood separated by plots of green grass and long concrete sidewalks. Students milled about the commons area; some eating, most simply socializing. They formed loose clusters in the bright midday sunshine, sitting or lying on the grass; laughing, kissing, playing.
    Haven followed a sidewalk past the library and walked into the cafeteria. She smelled fried food and disinfectant. The room rumbled with the sound of a hundred students talking, laughing, shouting, and moving all at the same time.
    Haven felt a tug on the back of her hair and spun around.
    “How’d the meeting go, troublemaker?” Kayla put her hands on her hips and shook her head as if she were ashamed. Her short black hair bounced lightly against her cheeks.
    “Shoot me now,” said Haven.
    “That bad, huh?”
    They each grabbed a food tray and walked over to the lunch line to see what was available.
    “Probably. I sort of zoned out in the middle. They want me to take Advanced Placement classes.”
    “Ew!” said Kayla. “You can’t switch now, we’re almost out of this dump! Besides, only nerds take college classes in high school.” She spooned a huge portion of white macaroni and cheese onto her tray.
    “And people who want to actually succeed a little bit in life, maybe?” Haven dropped a much smaller helping onto her own tray. She took two pieces of cornbread from a plate at the next window.
    “Well, you know my plan: marry quick and marry rich. I don’t even care what either of ‘em looks like!” Kayla slapped her thigh and fake-laughed at her own joke, which she had told more times than Haven could count.
    The girls had met while working at an ice cream shop downtown during the summer right after Haven first moved to Scottsdale. Her parents told her that it was okay for her to focus on school and worry about getting a job later, but Haven enjoyed the small amount of money—and freedom—that working at the ice cream shop provided. The job also helped to take her mind off the fact that she would probably never see any of her friends again.
    Having her choice of forty ice cream flavors didn’t hurt, either.
    She and Kayla hit it off quickly and soon they were carpooling to work and hanging out whenever they had free time. They didn’t have any of the same classes at school but still saw each other during lunch.
    Kayla plopped a piece of chocolate cake onto her tray as she moved down the line to the cashier.
    “You sure you don’t want more mac and cheese?” asked Haven. “Right now you only have enough for your next three lunches.”
    “Speak for yourself, Cornbread Queen. Tell your hips to watch out.”
    “Your kid’s kids are gonna be fat if you finish everything on your tray,” said Haven.
    “That’s where ‘marry rich’ comes in. Money fixes everything, don’t you know that?”
    They paid the cashier and turned around to find a