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“—no, no, no, Elsie, you do not get to bring that up, you were the one who—”

Two voices on the phone, talking over each other, both of them yelling.

“You cried, Tess.”

“I did not cry—”

“You cried in a Panera.”

“It was a lot of soup, Payton, and it was hot—”

I stand in the hall with my hand on the closet door.

She’s sitting on the bed with her back against the headboard and her knees pulled up. Her phone is propped up. I can see the edge of her face from here, and her big smile.

“Show her the thing.”

“I’m not showing her the thing.”

“Show her the thing, Elsie.”

Tessa makes a noise I’ve never heard come out of a human person, and then she’s laughing again, with her forehead on her knees, and she swears and says oh my God.

I don’t know this girl.

“Okay, but where are you?” the girl on the phone says. “Because that is not your grandma’s house.”

She pauses.

“I’m at friend’s house,” Tessa says.

“What friend?”

“A friend from school.”

“What friend from school, Tess?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“You’ll tell us now.”

She laughs. “I’ll tell you later,” she says again, and she’s smiling. I can hear it, and she says it in a way that means it’s finished, and both of them groan, and she laughs at them.

I get the blanket out of the closet. I stand there holding it a while longer than I need to. Then I go back downstairs, before she sees me.

An hour later, she’s louder.

I can hear her from my room across the hall. There are four voices this time, at least. Maybe five. All of them at once.

I go out into the hall like I’m getting something.

She’s lying on her stomach across the guest bed now, with her chin on a pillow and her phone in front of her, and the screen has four boxes on it. I know all of them. Kylie, Paige, Bianca, and Kenzie.

Tessa has no idea I’m behind her and can see her screen.

“—my uncle thinks I’m going to be a doctor,” Paige is saying. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“My grandma asked me if I had a boyfriend in front of my entire family and then asked if I gained weight,” Bianca says. “She said my legs are huge.”