“Mom said you’re leaving,” I whispered tentatively. This was Blair, my best friend, my fearless leader. I would have walked across burning coals for her a thousand times over. Now she felt like a stranger.

“Yup,” she said flatly, shoving a bathrobe into a suitcase without folding it. Obi circled the room, sniffing out danger.

“Well,” I continued, “I thought maybe you’d want to take this.” I held our notebook out to her. It was a black-and-white composition notebook, the kind kids in the 1950s had to take to school before we all got iPads.

It was filled with pages and pages of our finest creation: Planet Pirates. It was a comic we’d come up with that had everything we loved: space and princesses and even ballet sometimes. Blair and I loved Star Wars—hence why our dog’s full name was Obi-Wan Kenobi McCourt—and we were convinced we could make something just as epic and become millionaires. She sketched first, and I wrote the stories to go with her pictures. Blair was an even better artist than she was a ballerina, but she didn’t think so.

For years we’d been working on Planet Pirates. We’d sent Captain Antoine Moonbeard on adventures to Mars and the moon and the Milky Way to save Princess Stardust. Not even Jade was allowed to touch the notebook. This was our thing, the thing that connected us through food being pushed around plates and bloodied-toe tights being pulled off too-thin legs. We’d spent less and less time on our comic over the past few months, but it was still there, waiting to be filled with our stories.

“It’s your turn,” I said lamely. “I thought you’d want to see what I wrote for your last few drawings. I know we haven’t worked on it in a while, but . . .”

She stared at the notebook, and then at me. I thought maybe she would yell or tell me to get Obi out; he was shedding all over her comforter. But instead, she put her head in her hands and started to cry.

Blair the bold, Blair the strong, Blair the tough. People thought ballet dancers were flimsy little fairies, but Blair had punched Isaac Frank in the nose when he called her a sissy in fourth grade. She could perform onstage in front of hundreds of people and not even feel nervous. Yet here she was, crumbling to pieces in front of me.

That wasn’t the Blair I knew. I couldn’t even look. It was like staring into the eclipse without glasses. Your eyes could burn off.

I ran out into the hallway. When I reached my room, I slammed my door shut and locked it, even though that wasn’t allowed. Our family doesn’t lock our doors, Mom had reminded us a thousand times.

Blair hadn’t needed to lock a door, though, to keep this secret.

I turned my fan on full blast and pulled a blanket over my head, squeezing my eyes closed.

The night went on but I stayed in my room, unlocking the door only for Jade, who came in and went to sleep without saying a word. The next morning, Mom called for us to come down and say goodbye. I ignored her. When she came up and poked her head in our room, I pretended to be asleep.