But the countdown to Delia’s day—December fifth—is on. Delia stuffs her invitations, styled to look like season passes, into envelopes, Dad seals with a basketball sticker, Mom addresses with her perfect calligraphy, and I stamp. Episodes of Gilmore Girls that we know by heart run in the background. I will never not die when Luke pushes Jess into the lake, which happens just as Mom looks up from the guest list.

“Monica D.?” Mom frowns, pen poised above Delia’s final list.

“I thought anyone named Monica is not invited?” Dad asks.

Delia swallows. “They’re okay. We’re… friends now.”

I flash Delia an intense since when? look. “Dee.”

“What?” Delia says. “They’re invited. Can we drop it?”

“Sure,” Mom says in her light this is a test voice, starting to write her name on the envelope.

“Wait—” Delia says before Mom has even dotted the I. “Can we skip them for now?”

Mom drops her pen. “Okay, Dee Marie. What is going on?”

Delia sighs. “Hannah says I’m not making an effort with The Monicas. So I want to try. Because otherwise I’m going to lose Hannah to The Monicas—and that would be a million times worse than dealing with them at my bat mitzvah.”

Delia exits the kitchen, tears brimming under her lids. Mom drops her pen and stands, but I shake my head and tell her I’ve got this. I follow Delia up the stairs and through her bedroom door, where she sits on the edge of her bed and scrolls through her phone so fast she can’t actually be looking at anything.

I sit beside my sister and wrap my arms around her until she drops her phone.

“Everything is trash.” Delia wipes her eyes. “I don’t know what’s happening to us.”

“Middle school,” I say.

I remember it too well.

“But it’s like I don’t even know her anymore. Or like she doesn’t know me the way I thought she did. She thinks I’m not inviting The Monicas because I’m jealous. Me! Jealous. I’m, like, no. I’m not inviting them to an event they’re just going to mock.”

“Hannah needs a reality check. Have you talked to her?”

Delia shakes her head. “It’s hopeless.”

“Hannah is your Henry, Dee. And we haven’t been in the best spot either, so I get how you feel. I know confrontation is the worst. Trust me. But Hannah needs to know how much these microaggressions bother you, even if they don’t seem like a big deal to her.”

“We were supposed to go shopping today,” Delia says, sidestepping my question. “Hannah cancelled at the last minute. She said she had too much homework. But she’ll probably be in the background of Monica G.’s Snapchats later.”