“Okay,” I said nervously, like I was on one of those cop shows.

“Did you eat dinner with Blair last night?”

I thought of the night before. Dad made pasta; I remembered the spaghetti sauce on Obi’s ear. Jade had argued with Mom about whether or not she could get her belly button pierced. I had extra meatballs.

“No,” I said. “She said she was having dinner at your house.” She had run out the door, talking on her phone, mouthing Caleb’s to Mom.

Caleb pressed his hands on the table so hard his fingers turned white. “What about the night before? Monday? Think, Abby.”

“I don’t remember. . . .”

“It’s really, really important. It was warm that day, remember?”

I did. Brats and hot dogs on the grill, dinner on the back porch. Blair going on a date with Caleb and borrowing Mom’s earrings. She had a sweater on even though it was eighty degrees, a miracle for northern Wisconsin in April. She was so cold now, always shivering, putting more and more layers on, and draping a blanket over her shoulders the second she walked through the door.

“She said you and her were going to Fiorelli’s. Date night, whatever.”

Caleb stared at me, and I stared back, and there it was—the crashing realization that I had been lied to.

He put his head in his hands. I was worried he would start crying, but he just sat there for a minute.

“Crap, Abby,” he said finally. “Crap.”

When he finally looked back up, Caleb Evers looked sadder than I’d ever seen a person look.

“I have to talk to your mom, okay?” he said. “You tell her as soon as she gets home that she should call me. She has my phone number, I think. But I’ll give it to you just in case.” He grabbed my cell phone and typed it in. I stared at it when he was done. Caleb Evers, right there in my cell phone. God, Sophie and Lex would lose it.

I told Mom when she got back, and she went right into her room to call him. She stayed in there for a long time, even after she hung up. I knocked, but she told me she had a headache and needed to rest.

When Blair came home that night, I wondered if she could tell I had betrayed her. I tried to talk to her, but she was already getting ready for bed at eight o’clock.

“It’s kind of early,” I pointed out as she brushed her teeth. She shrugged. She was always tired, coming straight home from dance or therapy and curling up into bed. Instead of getting better at ballet, she seemed to be getting worse. I’d spied on her practicing pirouettes in her room, and she would lose her balance, frustrated, before just giving up.

“Did you get any further on Planet Pirates?” I asked. I was waiting for her next chapter. Princess Stardust was stuck on Mars. She was getting so cold waiting for Captain Moonbeard to save her that her skin was turning blue. Blair’s drawings were getting sadder and sadder. She used to always be happy when she was drawing. It wasn’t like ballet, where the pressure to be the best, get the leading role, and land a company job loomed over her like the Death Star. When she was drawing, she could be exactly who she was in the moment. It was the Blair I loved, not the one Anna Rexia had taken hostage.