“It doesn’t happen to us,” I say, proud of the way I’ve kept my voice calm. “I want to know what changed between us. I want to know why you stopped wanting to hang out. I want to know why you stopped talking to me about your day. I want to know why you constantly brush me off.”

“It’ll be better when I’m in my new place, okay?”

I feel my brow lower in confusion. “How will it be better?

How do you really think we’re going to spend more time together that way?”

She gusts out an exasperated sigh. “Can’t you leave this alone?”

It’s a version of something I’ve heard before. From my parents, especially that final year I was at home. From myself, anytime I’ve wanted to avoid something difficult. Leave it alone, Meg, and there’s still a part of me that wants to listen.

But I’m different now. I don’t only protect myself anymore.

I press. I practice. I stay.

“No, I can’t.”

For long seconds, I don’t think she’ll answer. I think she’ll simply turn on her heel and walk the short distance to her boxed-up bedroom. And if she does, I guess I’ll have to accept it. I can’t force her to talk to me, to fight with me. But at least I’ll know I tried.

“I want to work this out, Sib. It can’t be worse than how it’s been—”

“I’m jealous, okay?” she says, cutting me off. But her voice, in contrast to her words, isn’t a sad, sorry confessional. I see that jealous as a sword: the j a curved, elaborate hilt, the letters rising out of it slanting and sharp-edged, narrowing and narrowing to the most precise, painful point.

I blink at her, stunned. “Jealous?”

It doesn’t compute, not with me and Sibby. We made fun of girls like that. We rejected that kind of thing with elaborate celebrations of each other’s accomplishments, always. Always, until...

“Because of my business?” I say, tentatively. I think back, months ago. When the Times article came out, Sibby and I went for a fancy dinner, the kind you make a reservation for. We drank champagne. We toasted The Planner of Park Slope, and we went to a new show she’d been dying to see. She had celebrated it. But after . . .

After, she did start getting distant.

At first, I feel a sense of relief. Jealousy is awful between friends, but Sibby and I can get past it. If I tell her how it’s been—the pressure I’ve been feeling, the isolation I’d felt for so long. The worry over the block, the Make It Happyn deadline. If she knew . . .

But then she makes a derisive, annoyed noise, and I don’t feel any relief at all.

“Your business, sure,” she says. “Your life.”