“Tell me your plan,” I demand as I carefully step off the trunk.

“Well,” Jamie says, as the path becomes more uneven, “I’m gonna need to confront Mom about all this imaginary friend crap before I can enjoy … anything really. It’s kind of eating me alive.”

I narrow my eyes. You wouldn’t know by looking at Jamie that she’s being “eaten alive.” I’ve yet to see her shed a single tear about all this.

The path’s becoming increasingly rocky, so I have to be extra deliberate with my steps. “Um,” I finally respond after three minutes of silence. “Okay, you can call her—”

“Yeah, I need to have that Mom confrontation in person,” she says.

Is her plan to come home with me?

Jamie pulls ahead. I quicken my pace, trying to keep up with her. “Okay, fine, so what? You want to come back with me and then we’ll leave for California after you talk to her? That’s going to cost us more money. If we did that, I would wait outside because—”

Jamie pivots, and this time I’m so close, I crash right into her and wobble over the rocks. Her hand flashes out and snags my elbow, steadying me. “It’s cute that you think making Dad pay for some sister road trip will be a satisfying form of payback.” She pokes me and starts walking again. “But I’ll tell you right now. He’d love to be able to throw some money at you and get us on his side. And you’re forgetting about Mom. She gets off scot-free in that equation.”

“I’m not going to talk to her for a while. That’s not nothing,” I say.

We step over a muddy creek. The dirt squishes around my white sneakers.

“Oh, the horror.” Jamie eyes me wearily. “Didn’t you insinuate that she’s never around? How much do you talk in the first place?”

“We still live in the same house,” I grumble.

I hate that our reunion has brought these horrible truths about our parents into sharp focus. The closer I look at what they’ve done, the worse it gets.

“Funding a road trip isn’t going to inconvenience either of our parents.” Jamie twirls Jonas like a giant baton.

I stop walking and cross my arms. “What is your plan, Jamie? Spit it out already.”

She stops a few feet down the trail with a hand on her hip. “Okay, but please promise to hold all judgment till after I finish the pitch.”

I roll my eyes. “I’ll try.”

There’s a bunch of fallen trees and brush along the edge of the path up ahead. I shadow Jamie as she stalks toward a giant log, plants Jonas in the ground, and takes a seat on it. I stop in front of her, a few feet away.

“Okay, tell me,” I prompt when she doesn’t immediately begin.