Even though I know Rob and his friends won’t hurt us, we’re trapped in this house full of bad smells and secrets and horrible stuff written and drawn on the walls. It’s worse than the scariest Halloween house I’ve ever seen, and I want to get out, go home, get in bed, and pretend none of this ever happened. Most of all, I never want to see Rob again. I hate him.

“It’s like this, Sky,” Rob says. “If you tell, the coach might find out and kick us off the team. This is senior year. Don’t ruin it by blabbing to Mom like a little tattletale kid.”

He glances at me shivering in my wet clothes and hating him so much. “That goes for you too, Abbi.”

Skylar folds her arms across her chest. Her lips are blue with cold. “You’re the one who’s ruining it, not us.”

“Just promise not to tell, I beg you, Skylar. That’s all I’m asking.” Rob’s voice breaks, and I see how scared he is.

Skylar sees it, too. He’s bossed her around all her life, teasing her, making her feel little and powerless. Now it’s her turn to make him feel powerless.

She looks at me. I don’t know what she wants me to say, so I just look at the floor and try not to cry.

“Please, Sky,” Rob says. “Be a buddy. I’ll pay you back somehow, I promise.”

“Okay, okay,” Skylar says. “Just shut up. I won’t tell, but if you end up in jail, I won’t visit you. And I won’t care. I’ll tell people I’m not related to you—and you know what? I’ll wish it was true.”

She turns to me. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Sky—” Rob calls after us. “Really, it won’t happen again, I mean it. Don’t be mad!”

She doesn’t answer. I follow her outside. The rain has changed to a cold drizzle. Thunder rumbles in the distance and lightning dances overhead like small brushstrokes on the dark sky. We stop to get our backpacks from the tree house and pull our bikes out of the wet weeds.

The gray car is gone, its tire tracks filled with rainwater.

The ride home is long and silent. For once, Skylar has nothing to say. She gets like that when she’s really upset and doesn’t want to talk about it. I know better than to say something.

What would I say, anyway?

5

Skylar and I stop for a minute in front of our houses. The street is littered with small branches and leaves blown down by the storm. There’s a huge puddle in Skylar’s driveway. The flowers in our yard are beaten down. They droop every which way, their blossoms hanging.

“Don’t say anything to your mother about Rob,” Skylar says.