Lolly was worried about her little sister, too. At first, she felt it was an attention-seeking, oh-woe-is-me move on Kimmie’s part, and she was too busy with her own life to get involved. But Kimmie did look pretty gnarly, and now that it was hitting week three Lolly had changed her mind. “Kimmie, do you want to talk about it?” Kimmie turned away, not wanting to show the tears that were now falling down her face. “Please,” Lolly pleaded. “It might make you feel better.” More silence. “Look, I know I haven’t been a great big sister lately, and I’m sorry. But I’m worried about you.” Lolly reached out and touched her little sister’s hair, which she used to be jealous of because it was so much thicker than her own. Now Kimmie’s hair was limp and needed a good shampooing. “Hey, if you take a shower, I’ll give you a blow-out with my new Dyson Airwrap. I’ll beachwave your whole head and then we can take dope slow-mo videos to post. Or how ’bout I give you a mani? Steven got me some fire nail art stickers from Korea and you can have first pick.”

“No thanks,” Kimmie said, sniffling. “I just want to sleep.”

Lolly was now officially concerned. She had apologized, a rarity for her, and even offered Kimmie access to her mani/pedi kit, which her little sister always pestered her for. “Name it, Kimmie, and I’ll do whatever you want. Or better yet, ask me anything, and I promise I’ll answer truthfully. Seriously, the more embarrassing the better.” Lolly almost burst into tears with relief when this finally got her sister to flip back over and face her. She gave Kimmie a big smile of encouragement. “I’m glad that worked, because if it didn’t, I was gonna have to remove the X-Acto knives from your art box.”

“Is Vronsky with Anna now?” Kimmie asked, hating herself for wanting to know.

“What? No! Of course not!” Lolly replied sharply. She knew her tone was too strong, so she continued more gently. “I mean, as far as I know they haven’t seen each other since that night at the club. I asked Steven about Anna yesterday, and he said she was in Boston this weekend seeing her boyfriend. She goes up once a month.”

Kimmie digested the news but said nothing, annoyed she had even asked. It’s not like she really cared what Vronsky did anymore. The last few days she hadn’t even thought about him that much. She had pinched a few of her mom’s Ambien when Danielle was off at her Bar Method classes. She had only been taking a half at a time, but she liked that they gave her dreamless sleep.