“I’m not, though.” I’m almost shouting. The Uber driver coughs, but we ignore him. “That was the whole reason we came to this festival, even though you and your mom said it was too close to your Ireland trip. Because we wanted to meet him and get our books signed, and I didn’t even get to do that because whatever you told him to”—I pause to make air quotes—“calm him down actually made it worse, because he left.”

“I refuse to talk to you when you’re like this,” Jenna says, her voice rising to be heard over my ranting.

“You know how much those books mean to me.” I’m yelling, but I don’t care. “You know what those books got me through!”

She flinches, thinking of abandoned-puppy Amelia that she found outside of Downtown Books. Of the countless times her parents had to claim two daughters instead of one because my parents never bothered to attend award nights or sit through cheesy high school Christmas programs.

“Yes, but nobody knows what those books got him through. It’s not fair to ask too much of someone, Amelia, no matter how much we admire them or their work. He was desperate to get out of there. He looked trapped and lost and I … I told him that he had to take care of himself.”

The smooth hum of the driver’s BMW, the light, posh clicking noise of the turn signal, ticks into yet another pocket of silence. I wonder if it’s true that there can be absolute quiet before a tornado.

“I told him about you,” Jenna says after a while.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I interject. There is something else clanging around inside me that feels detached from our discussion of N. E. Endsley, and it’s making my chest hurt. “I don’t want to hear anything about it. You sent home the headliner of the festival because he was feeling stressed. I get it, but I’m disappointed, and I don’t want to hear any more. Please.”

The Please comes out on a hiccup. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic. And I can’t bring myself to care.

We don’t speak for the rest of the ride, or through security, wordlessly sitting next to each other as we wait for our boarding section to be called. We don’t speak when the flight attendant brings sparkling water for Jenna, Coke for me.

When the plane begins its descent into the airport, I finally ask her why she didn’t tell me sooner, why she waited until the car ride to bring it up.

“What difference would it have made if I told you sooner?” She says it like a fact, and I’m too emotionally exhausted to tell her that’s not an answer.

I’ve cried in front of Jenna a thousand times, but I’ve only seen Jenna cry once.