The first time the Statue of Liberty tried to save Ren, she was standing in a fluorescent-lit classroom in suburban California, not New York Harbor.

“Okay, class,” Ms. Henderson said, tapping the whiteboard with a red Expo like it was a gavel. The American flag in the corner of the social studies room fluttered lazily in the air-con. “For your final project, you’ll be performing reenactments in groups of three, based on our unit on immigration and Ellis Island.”

Groans. A few “yesses.” The scrape of chairs on linoleum.

Ren shrank a little lower in her seat, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands. Group projects meant talking. Reenactments meant being looked at. Both of those things were somewhere between “dental surgery” and “plane crash” on her personal doom scale.

Next to her, Sloan shot her hand into the air without waiting to be called on.

“Ms. Henderson?” Sloan’s ponytail swished with weaponized cheer. “Does Ren have to do it? She always kind of… drags everyone down.”

A few kids snickered. Ren stared at the grain in her desk, cheeks burning.

Ms. Henderson didn’t flinch. “Well, Sloan, last I checked, Ren is still part of this class,” she said, one eyebrow arching in that calm way that made eighth graders fold. “So yes. She will be participating as well.”

Sloan rolled her eyes just enough for the front row to see. “I was just asking.”

“I’ll be around with your scripts,” Ms. Henderson went on. “I’ve already assigned groups. Happy rehearsing.”

Ren’s stomach dropped. Scripts. Plural.

Please don’t put me with Sloan, she begged silently. Please let me be invisible just this once.

Ms. Henderson started down the rows, handing out stapled packets.

“Group one… Sloan, Sydney… and Ren.”

“Better not be in my group,” Sloan had muttered earlier.

Ren almost laughed at how fast the universe worked sometimes.

Sloan let out a groan that could’ve shaken the windows. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ms. Henderson ignored that too and slid a packet onto Ren’s desk. Yellow highlighter screamed across half the first page.

Ren blinked. “Um… Ms. Henderson?”

“Yes, Ren?” Her teacher’s voice gentled immediately.

“Why do I have so much highlighted?” Ren asked, flipping through the pages. Almost every other line glowed neon.

“Because,” Ms. Henderson said, with a little smile, “I gave you the lead role.”

It felt like the floor dropped out beneath her. “The… the lead?”

“Great,” Sloan muttered, leaning over to snatch the packet from Sydney’s hands. “We’re in the same group. For the most important project of the year. Awesome.”

“Can I… Can I have the smallest part?” Ren blurted out. “Like a line. Or two. I don’t mind being… background.”

“I’ll take it,” Sloan said instantly. “Seriously, Ms. H, give me the lead. I can memorize the whole thing tonight. No problem.”

“That’s very generous of you,” Ms. Henderson said. “But no. Ren, you’ll do great. I promise.”

Ren swallowed. Ms. Henderson moved on.

Sloan dropped the script back on Ren’s desk like it was contaminated.

“Don’t mess this up,” she hissed under her breath. “If you tank my grade, I swear—”

“Hey.”

Ren glanced up. Sydney, quieter and less shiny than Sloan, gave her a small, apologetic smile.

“If you want to practice together or whatever,” Sydney said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, “or like need help… I don’t mind. Just saying.”

Ren wanted to say thank you. What came out was more like a nod.

The Statue of Liberty on the cover of the script stared up at her, green and solemn. “Ellis Island: One Girl’s Journey.”

The girl was named Elena.

The girl was also apparently her.

“Hey, kiddo. How was school?”

Her adoptive dad, Ben, was at the kitchen counter that evening when she got home, still in his navy polo from the HVAC company, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that smelled like French vanilla and exhaustion.

Ren shrugged, backpack sliding off her shoulder. The heater in their Southern California duplex rattled faintly in the corner. “It was school.”

“Learn anything cool about America today?” he asked. “I saw the news doing a special on Ellis Island. That’s the place with the big lady in New York, right?”

“We’re doing a project on it,” she said, dropping the script onto the table.

Ben wiped his hands on a dish towel and picked it up. “Whoa. Look at all this highlighting. Lead role, huh?” He grinned. “That’s awesome.”

“It’s terrible,” Ren said.

He blinked. “Why?”

“Because it’s… public.” She pulled open the fridge, as if yogurt would solve any of this. “I don’t need any more people looking at me.”

Ben leaned against the counter. “You know, most kids your age want people to look at them.”

“I’m not most kids my age.” She shut the fridge without grabbing anything. “And I don’t need any new friends.”

“You have any new friends?” he asked, a little too casually.

“I have Iris,” Ren said.

Ben’s smile faltered for half a second. “Right,” he said softly. “Iris.”

He tried again. “You know, a smart person would at least get together with her groupmates and rehearse,” he said lightly, nodding toward the script. “You’re always saying you want good grades.”

“Why rehearse with them when I could rehearse with you?” she deflected. “Or with Iris.”

“You know you can’t…” He stopped himself. They’d had this conversation before. About what was real and what wasn’t. About who was here and who wasn’t coming back.

Ren ignored the way his jaw tightened. “Can you braid my hair?” she asked, tossing him an elastic. “It keeps getting in my face.”

He sighed, but took it. “Sure,” he said, motioning for her to sit on the stool. “But we’re talking about that project with Dr. Vice tomorrow.”

Ren rolled her eyes, but dropped onto the stool, letting him divide her hair into sections with surprisingly careful hands.

Dr. Vice’s office smelled like peppermint tea and the faint lemon of disinfectant. A framed photo of the Golden Gate Bridge hung behind her desk, a reminder that yes, California was bigger than their strip mall and middle school.

“So,” Dr. Vice said, crossing one leg over the other. “Brand new week. Anything good happening?”

Ren studied the carpet. “We have this group project. For social studies.”

“Tell me about it,” Dr. Vice encouraged.

“We’re supposed to do a reenactment about immigration. Ellis Island,” Ren said. “Ms. Henderson gave me the lead. She… thinks I can do it.”

“You don’t sound very excited,” Dr. Vice observed.

“I don’t want to do it.”

“Why not?”

Ren’s fingers twisted the edge of her sleeve. “Because bad things happen,” she whispered. “When I’m in the spotlight.”

She didn’t mean tripping in front of class. She meant sirens and shattered glass and the way the world had tilted, the last time everyone’s eyes had been on her. She meant the stretch of Interstate 5 where her life had split clean in two.

“Are you still having flashbacks?” Dr. Vice asked gently.

“No,” Ren said automatically. “No flashbacks.”

“Ren,” Dr. Vice said.

She stared harder at the floor. A small storm churned behind her ribs, pressing against her lungs.

“Your new family cares about you,” Dr. Vice said. “I care about you. We’re not trying to push you too fast. But hiding from every spotlight isn’t going to make the memories go away. Have you met your groupmates yet?”

“I already know them,” Ren muttered. “Sloan and Sydney.”

“Do you like them?”

“Sydney’s… okay.” She hesitated. “Sloan thinks I’m a disease.”

Dr. Vice’s mouth twitched. “Some kids use meanness to cover up their own fear,” she said. “You don’t have to believe everything she says about you.”

Ren didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Her eyes had started doing that glassy thing again.

“Okay,” Dr. Vice said softly. “Let’s park the Ellis Island stuff for a second. How are things at home with your new dad?”

“They’re fine.” The same word she used for everything. Fine.

“How are you liking your adopted family?”

“They’re… fine,” Ren repeated.

Dr. Vice sighed the tiniest sigh. “You know,” she said, “it’s okay to say when things are hard.”

Ren swallowed.

If she said they were hard, if she admitted how badly she missed her old life, her old room, her old mom’s velvet night voice and her dad’s terrible pancake flips, then everything would become too real. Like watching the same car crash over and over again, knowing exactly when the impact was coming and still not being able to stop it.

That night, she didn’t go to Sloan’s texted “group rehearsal” at the mall food court. She didn’t answer Sydney’s ping either.

She sat on her bed instead, script in her lap, phone facedown. Frosted fairy lights rimmed the walls of her small room, a dollar-store galaxy. The blinds cut the Southern California sun into measured slices.

“Name?” she read, voice barely above a whisper. “Elena. Age? Fifteen. Traveling alone? My uncle meets me. He is in Brooklyn. I have his letter.”

Her voice kept snagging on the commas.

“You sound like you’re answering a DMV questionnaire,” a voice said, somewhere between her head and the left side of the room.

Ren glanced up.

Iris was sprawled against the headboard like she’d always lived there, plaid pajama pants and frizzy dark hair spilling over her shoulders. Same freckles. Same chipped navy nail polish on her thumb. Same little half-smile that had once gotten them out of trouble and into it in equal measure.

No one else could see her.

“Try it again,” Iris said, tilting her head. “But, like, pretend you actually want to be in America.”

Ren snorted in spite of herself. “I don’t even want to be in this bedroom.”

“Yeah, but Elena does.” Iris held out her hand. “Give me the script.”

Ren hesitated. “We’re not supposed to let other people—”

“We” technically didn’t include ghosts, hallucinations, coping mechanisms, or whatever Dr. Vice would label Iris. Ren handed it over anyway.

“Watch and learn,” Iris said dramatically, flipping to the monologue.

She stood on the mattress like it was a stage in some Brooklyn theater and cleared her throat.

“Nobody prepares you to be an ocean away from home,” she began, and suddenly the room was smaller, her voice bigger. “Or how to be a stranger in a world that doesn’t even know how to say your name.”

She paced the length of the bed, one hand pressed to her heart.

“They tell you America is full of streets paved in gold. They forget to mention the piles of papers, the green inspection cards, the doctors who poke and prod and decide whether you’re worthy enough to step on those streets at all…”

She looked at Ren, eyes bright. “See? Easy. It’s just talking.”

“It’s not just talking,” Ren said hoarsely. “It’s… being seen.”

“You’re being seen right now,” Iris pointed out. “By the coolest audience member possible.”

“You don’t count,” Ren muttered. Then, quieter: “You’re not even supposed to be here.”

“Hurtful,” Iris said. “And yet… true.”

She sat back down, legs criss-crossed, script in her lap. “Ren,” she said, more serious, “you can’t stay here with me forever.”

“Yes, I can,” Ren said instantly. The thought of Iris disappearing made her chest cave. “I need you. Why doesn’t anybody get that?”

“At some point,” Iris said softly, “you’re going to have to go and live your life. Make friends. Go to the mall. Bomb a group project. Do something.”

“I don’t need that,” Ren whispered. “I have you.”

“You don’t have me the way you think you do,” Iris said. “Not really.”

Ren squeezed her eyes shut.

“Mom and Dad didn’t make it,” somebody had said in a hospital room, months ago. “And neither did your sister. I’m so sorry.”

The words had ricocheted around her skull, sharp and relentless.

They didn’t make it. We didn’t make it. We didn’t—

“Stop,” Ren said aloud.

Iris’s face softened. “I’m not trying to hurt you,” she said. “But you have to stop blaming yourself. What happened… wasn’t your fault.”

Ren put her hands over her ears. “If I hadn’t begged them to drive that night,” she said, voice cracking, “if I hadn’t wanted to be at that stupid choir concert, if I hadn’t wanted the spotlight…”

“Then maybe you all would’ve gotten hit by a distracted driver the next day instead,” Iris said bluntly. “Or the week after. Or never. You don’t know, Ren. That’s the point. It wasn’t a math equation you messed up. It was a bad thing that happened to good people.”

Ren’s vision blurred.

“I don’t want to leave you again,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

“You’re not leaving me,” Iris said softly. “I am already gone.”

The words ripped through her more cleanly than any truck had.

“I will always be with you,” Iris said, reaching out. Ren could feel nothing but somehow everything when their fingers brushed air. “Just… not like this. Not if it keeps you from standing on stages and eating ice cream and… you know. Being the weirdo you’re supposed to be.”

Ren let out a wet laugh.

“Before you go,” Iris said, the way you talk before a flight board closes, “promise me something.”

“What?”

“Promise me you’ll be there, on that stage. When it’s time to perform. Promise me you won’t disappear into your shell and pretend you’re not made for more than hiding.”

The idea of standing in front of the entire eighth grade made Ren’s stomach twist. But the idea of breaking a promise to Iris hurt more.

“I promise,” Ren said.

“Good,” Iris said, settling back against the headboard with a satisfied little sigh. “You know I’m your number one fan.”

Two days before the performance, Sloan cornered her at her locker.

“Hey,” Sloan said, arms crossed over her pastel sweater. “Are you ever going to rehearse with us? Or are you planning on tanking my grade from the safety of your bedroom?”

“I’m going home,” Ren said, pulling out her backpack.

“Of course you are,” Sloan muttered. “Look, I actually tried. I invited you to practice. I begged Ms. Henderson to give me your lines. Do you even care if Sydney and I fail?”

“That’s not fair,” Sydney said, appearing behind Sloan, cheeks pink. “We’re all nervous, Sloan.”

“I’m not nervous,” Sloan snapped back. “I’m annoyed.”

Ren shut her locker. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I just…”

Just what? Just see my dead sister sitting at the edge of my bed every night? Just feel like the world spins too fast whenever anyone looks directly at me?

She dropped her gaze. “I’ll figure it out,” she said, and walked away before they could see her hands shaking.

That night, Ms. Henderson called.

Ben knocked on Ren’s door, phone in hand. “You okay to talk?” he asked.

“I’ll be right back,” Ren told Iris. “Bathroom.”

She shut the door behind her and sat on the edge of her bed next to him.

“Hey, kiddo,” Ms. Henderson’s voice came through the speaker, warm and a little worried. “How’s Elena doing?”

“Terrified,” Ren admitted.

“I talked to your dad,” Ms. Henderson said. “He said Sloan’s parents called, and they’re worried you’re not doing the project.”

“It’s just…” Ren’s throat tightened. “It’s a lot.”

“We’re all a bit worried,” Ms. Henderson said gently. “Not because of the grade, but because this feels like a big step for you. I know you’ve been through… more than any kid should. But I wouldn’t have given you this role if I didn’t think you could handle it.”

Ren stared at the pattern on her comforter.

“I don’t think I can do it,” she whispered.

“You don’t think you can do what?” Ms. Henderson asked. “Work with Sloan and Sydney? Speak in front of everyone? Or… let people see you, just as you are?”

“All of it,” Ren said. “I’m not meant to be the friend. Or the lead. Or anything.”

“You’re meant to be here,” Ms. Henderson said firmly. “In this class. On that stage. With that script. And if you mess up every single line, you’ll still be the bravest kid in the auditorium.”

Ren felt something loosening in her chest. Not disappearing. But loosening.

“For now,” Ms. Henderson added, her tone lightening, “you have my permission to go back to your video games. We can revisit this tomorrow. Deal?”

“Deal,” Ren murmured.

The second Ben hung up, she exhaled hard.

“I can’t do this,” she told the ceiling.

“Sure you can,” Iris said from the foot of the bed. “You promised.”

Show day arrived whether she was ready or not.

The Brookside Middle School auditorium smelled like dust, popcorn from last week’s basketball game, and someone’s aggressively sweet perfume. Parents and siblings filed in, clutching Starbucks cups and phones angled, ready to record “important memories.”

An American flag hung stage left. A giant paper mache Statue of Liberty head, built by the art club, glowered from stage right.

Backstage, Ren’s hands shook so badly the paper script rustled. She could hear the muffled roar of eighth graders being forced to sit quietly for an entire period.

“You okay?” Sydney whispered, adjusting the cheap wool shawl that made up half their “turn-of-the-century immigrant” costume. She’d added a fake mole with eyeliner. It weirdly worked.

“Yeah,” Ren lied.

“You look like you’re about to faint,” Sloan said, but there wasn’t as much bite in it as usual. Maybe because Ms. Henderson had already handed out detentions for any more “drag us down” comments. Maybe because even Sloan was sweating under the stage lights. “You better not puke on me.”

“Places, Ellis Island group!” Ms. Henderson called quietly.

Ren’s heart hammered.

“Hey,” Sloan said suddenly, jutting her chin toward her. “For what it’s worth… if you decide to bail, I’m grabbing that script and going full Broadway. But if you don’t bail, and you don’t mess up, I’ll… say you did fine.”

It was as close to encouragement as she was ever going to get.

Ren swallowed. “Thanks,” she said.

She stepped into the wings.

The blinding white of the spotlight flooded her vision as she walked onstage, the scratchy wool dress brushing her knees. The audience blurred into one dark ocean.

Panic rose, hot and fast.

Nobody prepares you to be an ocean away from home.

The first line of the monologue echoed in her head, but it tangled with another image: headlights too bright, the scream of metal, her mother’s hand flying out in instinct, her sister’s laugh cut off mid-note.

Her pulse roared in her ears.

“Name?” Sloan said, in the clipped, official tone of the Ellis Island inspector she was playing.

Static.

Ren’s mouth was dry. Her gaze darted to the second row.

For a second, she saw hospital walls instead of bleachers. The phantom flashback rushed in—sirens, the words, “they didn’t make it”—threatening to pull her under.

And then, just past the glow of the stage, she saw her.

Iris. Sitting between Ben and Dr. Vice like she belonged there, elbows on her knees, grinning. No one else reacted, but that didn’t matter.

I told you I’d be here, she mouthed. Ren couldn’t hear a voice. She didn’t need to.

Ren inhaled slowly, the way Dr. Vice had taught her. Four counts in. Hold. Four counts out.

“Name?” Sloan prompted again, a little sharper, desperation hiding under her stage confidence.

“Elena,” Ren said, and her voice carried, clear and steady, all the way to the back row.

She felt the entire room lean in.

“Age?” Sydney asked, somewhere off to her right, accent slightly British for no reason.

“Fifteen,” Ren answered. “Traveling alone. My uncle will meet me. He is in Brooklyn. I have his letter.”

She held up the folded paper like it was a lifeline. Maybe it was.

“Do you have a job waiting for you?” Sloan asked.

“I will help in a shop,” Ren said. “Maybe one day… I will go to school.”

“SCHOOL?” Sloan scoffed, in character now. “Most girls your age travel in service.”

“I want more,” Ren said, and something in her chest loosened further.

Her cue.

She stepped forward, into the full burn of the spotlight.

Nobody prepares you to be an ocean away from home, she thought—and said. The words spilled out, exactly as she and Iris had rehearsed, but they felt newly born.

“Nobody prepares you to be an ocean away from home,” Ren said, voice building. “Or how to be a stranger in a world that doesn’t even know how to say your name.”

She could feel the script in her hand, but she didn’t look down. The Statue of Liberty head loomed behind her, goofy and green and perfect.

“They tell you about America,” she went on. “About the streets paved in gold, and the towers that scrape the sky, and the lady in the harbor holding a torch like a promise. They don’t tell you about how much it hurts to leave.”

Her throat tightened. She pushed through it.

“They don’t tell you that every wave you cross pulls you farther from your friends, your house, your family. That you’ll stand on this island”—she gestured to the taped-out boxes on the stage—“hungry for a new start, but still aching for what’s familiar.”

She saw Dr. Vice sit forward in her seat. Ben’s hands were clasped so tightly his knuckles were white.

“It took everything in me not to jump off that boat and swim all the way back,” Ren said, feeling her own truth bleeding into Elena’s. “Back to the streets where everyone knew my name. Back to the front porch where my mother sang, and my sister laughed, and my father pretended he wasn’t crying.”

Her voice wobbled. She swallowed hard, the way you do right before you decide to keep going.

“But then,” she said, “I saw her.”

She turned slightly, looking past the paper Statue of Liberty to the idea of the real one, standing in New York Harbor on the other side of the country. On this side of the country, a faded U.S. flag hung over the exit sign.

“Lady Liberty,” Ren said. “Standing there tall and alone. Holding up that light like she wasn’t afraid of the dark at all.”

Iris lifted an invisible torch in the second row, making a face. Ren almost laughed.

“And I thought,” Ren continued, “maybe I could be like that too. Maybe I could stand. Maybe I could be scared and still step forward.”

She took one small step, stage left.

“Maybe,” she said, the words coming easier now, “sometimes you have to say goodbye to what’s comfortable… so you can say hello to what’s possible.”

Silence.

For one suspended second, nobody moved. Then the auditorium erupted.

Applause crashed over her like surf. Ms. Henderson was on her feet. Sydney was grinning. Even Sloan looked stunned, then grudgingly impressed as she clapped.

Ren’s heart pounded. Her palms were sweaty. Her body was buzzing with adrenaline and something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Pride.

She risked a glance at the second row.

Ben was wiping his eyes openly. Dr. Vice was smiling so wide it almost hurt to look at. And between them, where maybe no one else saw, Iris sat beaming, hands cupped around her mouth.

“You were amazing!” Iris shouted in Ren’s mind. “Told you. Total star.”

Ren let herself smile. For real. Not the tight, careful one she gave adults when they said they “understood.” This one reached her eyes.

She took a bow, wool dress itching, spotlight hot against her face, the Statue of Liberty’s shadow slicing across the stage like a blessing.

Somewhere inside, the part of her that wanted to run stayed still.

Somewhere else, on a stretch of highway that would always exist in her memory, the car finally came to a rest.

Later, when the auditorium emptied and the fluorescent lights buzzed back on, Sloan shoved her gently in the shoulder.

“Okay,” Sloan said grudgingly. “That was… not awful.”

Sydney rolled her eyes. “It was incredible,” she corrected. “Ren, you were—”

“Hey,” someone said behind them.

Ren turned.

A few kids from other classes, kids who barely knew her name last week, were hovering in the aisle.

“That speech was… really good,” one boy said. “Like something out of a movie.”

“I cried,” a girl with braces admitted. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Ren’s cheeks flushed. She mumbled something that might have been “thanks.”

Ms. Henderson rested a hand on her shoulder. “You know,” she said quietly, “Ellis Island was the first stop in America for millions of people. Today, it was your first stop too. On something new.”

Ren glanced toward the second row.

The seats were empty now. Ben and Dr. Vice waited by the door, talking softly.

Iris wasn’t there.

Ren’s chest pinched—then eased. She knew better now than to panic.

Good friends are like stars, Principal Danvers had told her once when she’d been crying in his office. You don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there.

Ren looked up.

The stage lights were still blinding. Beyond them, past the ceiling and the California sky and an entire country stretching east, a green statue stood in a harbor, torch raised.

Ren took a breath, feeling the weight of the script in her hand, the warmth of the applause still fading from the air.

“Hi,” she said quietly, turning to Sydney and even Sloan. “If you guys ever want to hang out after school sometime… you know. To… not rehearse.”

Sydney smiled. “I’d like that,” she said instantly.

Sloan hesitated, then shrugged. “As long as there’s boba,” she said. “I don’t hang out for free.”

Ren laughed.

For the first time since the night everything had changed on a California freeway, the idea of a future—of lockers and homework and awkward mall trips and maybe, someday, another stage—didn’t feel like a threat.

It felt, impossibly, like hope.