I squint, unsure of what he’s asking.

His face is wide open. I don’t know how he does that. He gives off the impression that he would be as easy to read as See Spot Run, but whenever I try, it’s like I’m looking at an ancient Latin text or something—indecipherable. “Is there something in particular you maybe regret from your last moments with Mabel? Something you would change?”

My stomach clenches as I think about that last morning with Mabel. The lip gloss. The fight. This is something I haven’t talked about with Dad or Grams. I definitely haven’t told Quinn.

Dr. Randall waits for me to talk. He holds his pose like statue.

“I got in a fight with Mabel. The morning it happened.” I look down at my hands.

Dr. Randall makes his “mmm” sound. It’s softer, though. “What was the fight about?”

“Argument might be a better word.”

“Words are important to you. Aren’t they, Cora?”

I shrug. “I like to be specific.”

He nods. “That’s a good thing.”

“I think so. Some people don’t, though.”

He gives me a tight smile like he understands what I mean by that. “Was your argument with Mabel about being specific?”

My eyes drop to the carpet. It’s a plush beige. It’s always clean. I can never even find a fleck of dirt. Dr. Randall must vacuum a lot. “It was about the fact she—” I stop talking. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Hm. I think it’s important to you, and therefore, it matters,” Dr. Randall says.

I take a deep breath. “It was like high school changed her. She’d only been there a little more than two months, right?” I know the exact amount of time Mabel was in high school, sixty-five days, two hours, three minutes. But I don’t volunteer that information.

“But she’d already changed? How?”

“It’s like all of a sudden I was her little sister instead of just her sister.”

“Weren’t you her little sister?”

“Yeah. I guess. But I really became her little sister when she started high school. She kept saying things like ‘Oh, you wouldn’t understand.’ Mabel never had said stuff like that to me before. She always talked to me about everything. She never made me feel silly for asking questions. But that fall, she was different.” Even as I talk, I can feel my whole body resisting it. These aren’t things I should say out loud. This is a betrayal of my sister.

“And that upset you? Is that why you fought?” Dr. Randall asks. His face is as calm as ever.

“She got all these new lip glosses. Grams didn’t want us wearing makeup until we started high school. Honestly, Grams wasn’t a big fan of Mabel wearing makeup even when she started high school, but that had been the deal. And Mabel started waking up early and spending all this time in the bathroom getting ready for school. That morning, she came back into our room, and she had this dark shade on.” I keep staring at the very clean carpet. I don’t want to see Mabel’s face—her dark lips, the expression on her face when I insulted her.