I’m sprawled on the couch in my family room Thursday night, barely watching the TV in front of me, scrolling through the texts May and I have sent back and forth in the last few days, trying to figure out the perfect thing to say to her. There’s this part of me, this insane part, that feels like if I can string together words in exactly the right way, I can ease some of her pain.

I’m deleting yet another sentence without sending it, when Gwen comes into the room and flops down next to me.

“What are you watching?”

I squint up at the TV and shrug. “No clue. You can change it if you want.” I nod at the remote a few cushions down and she reaches out with her foot and grabs it like a tiny, cute monkey. She flips to the Disney Channel and then sneaks a glance at me like she thinks maybe I’m going to laugh at her for watching it. I make sure my face remains impassive, because I’d much rather she watch that than some of the shit that’s on these days. She’s growing up too fast as it is.

We’re quiet for a few minutes, me playing with my phone and her watching the show.

“You know what?” Gwen interrupts the silence. I look up at her and see that she’s staring at me intently. “No one’s spray-painted our garage in weeks. Isn’t that weird?”

The fact that my baby sister thinks it’s weird that no one has harassed our family lately makes me unbearably sad for a second. I try so hard to hide it all from her: the vandalism, the nasty letters, the angry glances from our neighbors. I swallow the lump in my throat. “Yeah. True.” I shrug. “Maybe people have started to forget. Not, like, what happened, but the fact that Mom felt the need to insert herself in the middle of it.”

“I doubt it. Now that the trial is about to start…” She trails off, and I glance at her. She’s staring at the television with tears glistening in her eyes, her fists balled in her lap.

“Hey. What’s up, Gwenie?” I straighten and lean toward her. “Are people being dicks to you at school again?”

“Again?” She lets out a sarcastic laugh that hurts my heart. “Again would mean that it had stopped, ever. I’d say that people are still being dicks, yeah.” She gives a tiny shake of her head. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“I thought things were going okay? Did you have a good time at that girl’s party? What’s her name? Emery?”

She snaps her head up, face red. “Don’t ever mention that name around me again. She’s awful.”

My stomach tightens. “What did she do?”