“Yes, I was wondering about that. Were you sick last night?” she asks, blue eyes sharp on me. “Really? Because I think you were faking it to get out of having dinner with everyone. And that’s normally my move.” She sighs. “I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t know what bug crawled up your butt today, but it’s not okay for you to just puke your rage all over me. Why are you even so mad? I mean, I get that you’re still steamed about Leo, or at least I would be. But you don’t have to take it out on me.”

She’s right. It’s Mom I’m really pissed at. I should apologize. I know that. I should be an adult about it. But I also still see the common sense in getting Afton to stay away from me. It’s a painful push and pull with us, like turning magnets toward and away from each other. I want to draw her in, confide in her, work it through with her, get her advice, get her sympathy, get her support. And I also want to push her away so she doesn’t get hurt.

Sisterhood is complicated.

And in some irrational way I do blame Afton. If Afton hadn’t taken Abby to hula class—if they hadn’t both insisted on freaking hula, instead of paddleboarding like I wanted, none of this would have happened. I’d still be blissfully unaware of what is going on with Mom.

But I can’t say any of this, so I have to think up another reason.

I start with the obvious. “You didn’t tell me about you and Logan breaking up.”

She frowns. “Well, like I said before, you had your own thing—”

“A good sister would have told me. We always tell each other everything. I told you about Leo. And if you’d told me about Logan, then we could have—I don’t know—commiserated. But instead you just let me babble on and on about all the things I was feeling.”

“I was trying to be supportive,” she says tightly.

“Well, don’t. Also you didn’t save me a seat.”

“A seat?”

“Today, when we got to the bus. I thought we were going to sit together, but no, you sat with Kate.”

She gives a little confused shake of her head, like what the hell am I talking about? “I thought you were going to stay up front with Abby.”

“But I didn’t. And you don’t even like Kate. And you were sitting on the inside, by the window.”

“So? I always sit by the window.”

“So you must have sat down first. And then Kate came to sit down next to you, and you didn’t say, ‘Sorry, I’m saving this for my sister.’ Which would have been the sisterly thing to do.”