Here’s something I bet you don’t know, Lar. Lavender’s and Cavendish’s real names are Linwood and Trixie, so you can see why they’d want to change them. It’s weird, since the new names aren’t better at all. But Lav and Cav are loyal to Kate and so I like them for that. Loyalty is a good quality and one it seems like my old friends don’t have. I’m not trying to be rude when I say that. Well, maybe I am, I guess. You probably have your reasons for not returning my texts or DMs. Not that I’ve sent any lately. I guess I just felt bad when I saw my sister still having her best friends.

When Derek and Mom brought Kate and Lav and Cav into the room, I was happy to see that Kate looked less pale and the dark circles under her eyes were lighter. She was still extremely skinny, but regular skinny, not scary skinny like she was before she ran away. All it took was a few days away from us and she looked better. Cavendish and Lavender eat a lot more than Kate, and they always talk about how not eating is what men want women to do so men can have all the power because women are so starved they can’t stand up for their rights. Then they go on and on about the patriarchy, which is about men running the world. Remember how we used to think they were saying “the Petrarch,” and we didn’t know what a Petrarch was, so I looked it up and we found out that Petrarch was an Italian poet? I didn’t understand why a poet who had been dead for hundreds of years would be interested in whether my sister eats or not. Then your mother explained it to us. You know, I think that was one of the last times I talked to your mom.

Cavendish actually wore her hair off her face but not in a normal way. She had her bangs in a ponytail on her forehead. She looked like a unicorn, only instead of having a horn, she had a fountain coming off her head. You’d have liked it, probably.

“Kate is not going to talk today,” Cavendish said, and her forehead tail bounced. “She’s still processing and wants to do so at her own pace.”

My mom looked at her. My mom always looks so normal compared to Kate and her friends. She looks like she should be a billboard for tooth whitener, and they look like they are on a poster about extremely troubled teens in the counselor’s office at school.

“Okay,” said my mother. She’s very patient with my sister and Lavender and Cavendish, even though they treat her like she’s dumb, which she is not.

“Are you willing to speak to the counselor?” my mom asked Kate.