Kennedy laughed. “Not really,” she said. “It’s not completely out of character for me, but I wouldn’t do that to you,” she added quickly. “And I’m sorry, too. I don’t . . .” She twisted her face, thinking. “I hope we can hang out again next summer. But let’s keep in better touch when we’re at home, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, hugging her tightly when she stepped closer. We broke away, and she sniffed, tears in her eyes.

“I’ll miss you waking me up in the middle of the night.”

“I’ll miss waking you up.”

She got in the minivan with Kane without saying anything else. Through the tinted window, I saw the shadow of her climb to the third row, sit down, and put on headphones.

I went around and opened the slider door on Kane’s side, giving him a big hug in his booster seat.

“I’ll miss you,” I told him, my hands on his squishy knees.

“I’ll miss you too, Teth, and I’ll think about you every day all the days except when I’m sleeping that’s silly,” he said, making me laugh and tear up again.

“I’ll think about you every time I draw a picture using green pencil,” I said. “Or anytime I eat something with ketchup!”

“Eeeeeew!” Kane shrieked. “Ketchup is icky, Teth!”

Laughing, I gave him another quick hug and turned away. “See you.”

“Stop ignoring me,” Frankie said, cutting into my thoughts.

“Sorry.” I didn’t try to deny it. “I was just thinking of everyone leaving. It was kinda sad.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, I’m really sorry again for yelling at you that time,” I said. “I hate when I go Angry Tess on you.” I almost said she didn’t deserve it, but I wasn’t so sure about that. Still, I didn’t like how I’d yelled. I wished I were better at just talking to my sister instead of either agreeing with everything she said or blowing up at her.

I made a silent vow to work on that.

“Sometimes Angry Tess is good,” Frankie said. “Like you slayed standing up for yourself with that girl—”

“Jackie.”

“Yeah, that girl.” She looked away from me and said, “I know sometimes I do stuff that makes it hard to be nice to me.” We walked a few steps in silence. “It’s not like I don’t know.”

“I know,” I said softly.

“Anyway.”

We walked along in silence for the rest of the way, me thinking about how much I appreciated Frankie standing by me at Jackie’s, and her probably wishing for a tornado to hit. Then, eighteen minutes after we’d jumped off the cabin porch, we made it to the fence that kept people off the overpass. It took me a minute, but I figured out how to open the gate.