The End We Start From

Longing for R dominates the narrator’s dreams and waking thoughts until she resolves to leave the island with Z. Although she plans to travel alone with Z, H decides to go with her for protection. As they travel together—a man, a woman, and a baby who appear to be a family of three—the narrator thinks fondly of R and wonders if she will ever find him. Through the trip, her longing makes her want to reach out to H and find comfort in a man’s embrace, but she refuses to act on these feelings.

On their return journey, they encounter the same checkpoint, and the guards treat her with more respect this time. She wonders if this is because the guards assume she is H’s wife. As they cross the border into Scotland and return to the refugee camp, the narrator notices that the rest of the world has changed.

The narrator, H, and Z learn that rescue organizations have developed, and where the camps were once chaotic, there are now forms to indicate what assistance one needs and who is missing from one’s family. There are buses to take the refugees to their former homes.