Going to a highly selective private high school, I was surrounded by excellence. "I didn't have enough space on my application to fit all my achievements," a friend said about her application to the school: she had won math, writing, and piano competitions and was a star violinist and figure skater. Others had their own heaps of accomplishments and excellencies, earning them instant approval from peers and adults around them. I was raised ambitious. My father would reply to my updates about...

She kneels on the dock pulling up a mass of tangled net; a red snapper flashes angrily in the dying light.

I hang from the cracked white ceiling, watching every morning unfold like a letter. I rarely see anyone’s face—