Astrid is a character who feels that her friends (Justin and Kristina)  don’t understand her.  While she is obtaining a job, school, and personal issues.  She is able to somehow maintain these stresses while her friends give her a hard time asking about a secret that only Astrid knows.  “Do you have anything you want to tell us?”Kristina asks.  “No,” I say.  “We hear things,” Justin says.  “Will you guys stop saying that?  if we all believed what we hear, then you two would be screwing each other in the backseat right now,” I said.  Astrid is hesitating to tell them the huge secret which is she ‘s homosexual. She is worried that if she does tell them, they will not be her best friends anymore or they’ll look at her in a different point of view.  This reminds me of my classmate when I was in middle school taking social studies class.  My classmate had a worried look on her face which made me go to her and ask her what is the matter .  She was very upset with her life, that on one takes her seriously or understands her.  She was a brilliant student in class, but outside of school she was struggling with her parents.  Her parents had a very low income job which made their lives even harder to live.  They didn’t have enough to eat, didn’t have enough seasonal clothing to wear, and they also had to live in a homeless shelter. She kept these tensions to herself and didn’t mention to anyone about it.  Just like in the book “Ask the Passengers” Astrid and my classmate who are both struggling in their lives, carrying these burdens and mentioning to anyone.