To keep Skylar and me apart, Mom makes sure that I spend the weekend with her and Greg. On Saturday afternoon we go to Greenbrier Lake. Greg rents a canoe, something Mom can’t afford, but it just makes me feel hot and sick and itchy. On Sunday we go to Harpers Ferry. It takes forever to get there. We walk around the town, up and down steep hills, with crowds of people and crying kids all pushing and jostling and talking so loud my ears hurt. After lunch, which I can’t eat, we cross a bridge over the Potomac River and watch rock climbers scramble up a steep rock face. Then we walk at least a hundred miles on the canal towpath.

It’s more like a punishment than a fun weekend. My poison ivy itches and itches and itches. The hot sun makes it worse. I still feel nauseated from swallowing the water in the Paint Branch—although it might just be psychological and have nothing to do with the water in the stream.

I miss Skylar. On a normal day, she’d be with us. We’d be laughing, having fun, acting silly. Greg would tease us. Mom would be in a good mood. Maybe we’d stop for dinner and Skylar and I would have giggle fits about something.

We come home after dark. Skylar’s bedroom light is off. I wonder what she’s been doing all day. Does she feel bad about not being invited to come with us? Did she get a new phone? I think about texting her before I go to bed, but I’m just too tired to pick up my phone. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.

Monday is the first day of being grounded. Skylar and I haven’t talked for two days. She hasn’t texted me, and I haven’t texted her. Now we’re sitting side by side on her porch steps.

“Where were you all weekend?” she asks me.

“Oh,” I say in a dull voice. “Greg and Mom dragged me to Greenbrier Lake on Saturday and then to Harpers Ferry on Sunday. It was hot and crowded and totally boring.”

“How come you didn’t take me?”

I try to come up with a reason that isn’t the real reason. “They wanted to do a family thing, just the three of us.”

Skylar looks at me. “Your mom blames me for what we did. She doesn’t want you hanging out with me. I’m a bad influence, right?”

I shake my head. “She’s mad at me, not you.”

Skylar gives me her slit-eyed stare. “You never could tell a lie, Abbi. Admit it. Your mom has never liked me all that much.”