I stopped in front of the living room clock like an itch. It hadn’t been adjusted in a whole month. Who knew how far off it had drifted. It was probably off by dozens of seconds. Maybe even a full minute!

“You okay?” said Willow.

I blinked. Remembered that I was supposed to be a stranger in this house. Smiled.

A great big genuine smile that kind of hurt my face.

“Yeah,” I said. “Definitely.”

Dinner was Pizza Hut—greasy, cardiac-arrest-inducing, glorious Pizza Hut. What it lacked in the home-cooked-meal department, it more than made up for in family participation points.

I couldn’t remember the last time my whole family sat down together for a meal. It was a rare, cosmic event—probably in the same league as the eclipse. Maybe rarer, because at least scientists could predict that shit.

After dinner, Willow and I changed into our pj’s. But this was a mere superficiality. Neither of us planned to sleep. We were too worked up to sleep—wired, and restless, and alive.

Willow belly-flopped on her bed—gracelessly—then rolled onto her back so that her hair cascaded over the edge in an emo waterfall. She pointed at me. “Truth or dare.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, giggling. “No way.”

“Come on!” She slapped the empty mattress beside her. “I’ll go easy on you.”

I sighed and sat on the bed. “Truth.”

Willow sat upright, but she didn’t hesitate—not even for a second. “When Ziggy pulled you off Jayden, and you were screaming at him, you said, ‘She’s my sister.’ Why did you say that?”

Well, shit.

I set myself up for this one. I only screamed that line loud enough for anyone in a five-mile radius to hear. I should’ve seen this question coming light-years away.

“Uh… you’re like a sister to me,” I said. “I don’t have a sister, so… Sorry if that was weird.”

“No.” Willow shook her head hastily. “Don’t be sorry. That’s what I figured you meant. I was just flattered is all.”

But even as she said this, she looked at me in a prying sort of way. Like she could see through my disguise.

“Truth or dare,” I said, sort of frantically.

“Truth.”

“Do you hate Ezra?”

Watch out, kids. Captain Buzzkill was in the house.

Willow reared back slightly. “What? No. Why would you ask that?”

“Uh.”

“Does Ezra think that?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fix this, Ezra, fix this.

“I think… that maybe he thinks that,” I mumbled, like a total dipshit.

“Well, I don’t,” said Willow. “I love Ezra. He’s my brother. I mean, he’s frustrating sometimes, and kind of oblivious, but he’s a boy, so I try not to hold that against him.”

I bit my lip, and nodded, and was trying so very, very hard not to get emotional. I mostly succeeded.

“Sorry, that was a stupid question,” I said.