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She slips a little, not wanting to say the real reason for scheduling an extra session with my therapist. Her smile is practiced and pasted on, like her lips forgot to slide back over her teeth and now are resting in perma-smile. I know it very well. It’s stuck not just on her face but on every wall of the house, our annual family pictures announcing that yes we are happy—look at our faces. I’ve been practicing a little myself lately, figuring out what it takes to knock Mom’s smile off. I take a swipe now, knowing the one word that always hits home.

“You can just say it, you know,” I tell her, as I follow Mom out to the car. “You can just say we’re going to see Dr. Gabriella because of Tress.”

We all freaked out when we woke up to find Tress gone Sunday morning. Gretchen had sat in my bed, clutching one of my pillows and trying to look like she wasn’t upset. But I knew Gretchen—whether I liked her or not. Her lips, still stained candy red, but now dry and flaking, had been crushed in a straight line, her teeth shut tight against any guilt she might have about what she’d said to Tress the night before.

Maddie had immediately broken into tears, saying now the whole family was missing—which had sent my stomach spiraling. I was in a panic by the time I woke up Mom, a sobbing, hysterical mess. Dad had brought everyone downstairs, asking if anyone had seen her leave or heard anything strange, while Mom made phone calls, what few there were to make.

Lenore—Ribbit’s mom—was zero help, and Tress’s grandpa wasn’t picking up the phone. I tried texting Tress, but she wasn’t answering my texts. Or my calls. Or responding to voice mails.

“Okay,” Mom said, yanking a sweatshirt on over her pajamas. “I’m driving out there.”

Gretchen gasped, her hand clenched tight around the orange juice Dad had poured for her. “You’re going to the white trash zoo?”

“Gretchen!” Dad admonished, but she didn’t even blush.

“I mean, like, you’ve had your tetanus shot, right?” she’d asked.

“I’m coming with you,” I’d announced. Mom had been too worried to argue, and I’d left Maddie and Gretchen to Dad’s pancakes while we drove up the ridge silently, a light rain falling. We pulled into the Amontillado Animal Attractions, and my mom let out a long breath, her rush of relief filling the whole car.

There was Tress, standing out by the animal pens, brushing the zebra.

“Don’t—” Mom had begun to say, but I was already out of the car, rushing toward Tress. I’d wrapped my arms around her, squeezing tight.

“I thought you were gone,” I’d said.

And Tress, stiff and unresponsive in my arms, simply said, “I am.”

“So, your friend”—behind me, Dr. Gabriella turns a page of her notes—“Gretchen.”

“Gretchen’s not my friend,” I say. It just pops out, like how sometimes I accidentally belch and Mom makes me leave the table. But this is worse. These are words I didn’t know were in me. There’s a pause.

Dr. Gabriella put me on the couch after our second appointment. “You’re always looking at me for a reaction,” she’d said. “You worry so much about saying the wrong thing that I can hardly get you to say anything.”

So she put me on the couch, facing the wall, with her sitting behind me. It had felt weird, at first, but once I got used to it, I found out she was right. It was a lot easier to just say what I thought if I wasn’t checking for someone else’s reaction before continuing.

When I admitted as much she told me I should try it in real life sometime.

Now Dr. Gabriella asks, “If Gretchen isn’t your friend why was she at your birthday party?”

I look at my hands, pick at a hangnail there. “I don’t know . . . can you have friends you don’t actually like sometimes?”

“Yes,” she says. “Friendship is complicated. So Gretchen said something that upset Tress?”

“Yeah.” I reach up, scratch my itching scalp. “She said she stole my tamp—”

“I’m sorry, I’m going to have to stop you.” Behind me, Dr. Gabriella gets up, her high heels clicking across the wooden floor of her office. She calls my mom in from the waiting room, and I sit up, worried.

What did I do? Did I say something wrong?

“April,” Dr. Gabriella says. “Did you know that Felicity has lice?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have her in my house again, that’s all I’m saying,” Jill Astor says as she makes a face, primly pinching two fingers together as she slides a nit off a strand of Gretchen’s hair.

We’re having a post-birthday-party party.

Mom had driven home from my appointment with red cheeks, her voice cracking as she yelled at Dad over the phone. “Dr. Gabriella has to fumigate her couch. And I have to call all the other moms. I have to tell them their children got lice at my daughter’s birthday party.”

She ordered in food and invited the girls and their moms for what she called a “nit-picking” party. The other moms brought bottles of wine with them, making a joke out of it. Brynn, Gretchen, Maddie, and I had lined up as our moms poured stinky stuff on our heads, told us to keep ourselves busy on our phones, and started drinking.