Dad insisted we drive all the way to the Adirondacks in one day, since we had to cut our vacation short by a week to be back in time for a mandatory practice and my baseball tournament. We started driving at five in the morning, and we were only outside Toledo, not even a third of the way there.

“Honey, did I close all the windows?” Mom asked Dad.

“You know, I think you might’ve left one open. We should probably turn around now. We’re only, like, five hours away.” Haley snorted after she said it.

“Hales…,” Dad said.

“Come on, Mom. You always do this. Remember that time you thought the house was going to burn down because you left the bathroom fan on? It didn’t. What’s the worst that can happen from leaving a window open, anyway?” Haley stared out the car window, shaking her head. I’m not sure she could get farther away from me in the backseat if she tried.

“She has a point, dear.” Dad yawned.

“But what if it was open wide enough that a skunk crawled through and turned the house into its own stinky home?” I asked.

“I guess then the rest of the house would smell like your room,” Haley said.

“My room doesn’t smell like skunk!”

“You’re so used to it you can’t even tell anymore.”

“Girls, that’s enough,” Mom said. “Please.”

“At least it doesn’t smell like nail polish,” I said. Haley had had all her friends over to paint their nails the day before, and the house still smelled like stinky nail polish when we left. I hoped Mom had left the window open. Maybe then it wouldn’t stink when we got back.

“You’re just mad because you weren’t invited,” Haley said.

“Am not.” I pulled a book out of my backpack. It was called Savvy, and it was on my summer reading list. The real one, not Haley’s. After missing out on Antonio’s with my teammates, I’d thrown Haley’s list in the recycling. The librarian posted the books we were actually supposed to read online, anyway.

Reading in the car always made me a little sick to my stomach, but it was a whole lot better than talking to my sister.

Haley took out her cell phone. Time to give Zack or one of her friends another update.

I didn’t know why I cared what she was doing. I had a life. I had my own stuff going on.

Maybe I would find out I had a special power, like Mibs in my book. There was still another month left of summer. Plenty of time to discover that I could fly or be invisible. Or turn back time.

—

When we pulled up to Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave’s house, it was almost midnight. Mom had fallen asleep, but Dad, Haley, and I were wide-awake, thanks to Mountain Dew.

I shivered when I stepped out of the car. It was a lot cooler in the mountains than it was back home, and I couldn’t see much because there were all these trees trapping us in. They looked like gigantic Christmas trees, and it smelled like Christmas, too.

Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “Check under the mat for the key. You do the honors.”

I ran up the steps and felt under the woven doormat for the key. I found it and put it in the lock. It was a little sticky, but I turned it with all my strength until I heard a click.

The door opened with a creak. The trees blocked the moonlight from reaching us, making it extra-dark. I flipped on the light switch and went from room to room downstairs, turning on all the lights.

Everything was in its right place from last summer and the summer before that. We’d been coming here every summer since I was four. There was the weird monkey lamp, right where it belonged on the table next to the faded yellow sofa. And the bookcase filled with board games that we would play late into the night because nobody had to go to work or school the next day.

While Dad and Haley started bringing in our suitcases and the bags of food Mom had packed, I raced upstairs to turn on more lights. The upstairs was a little creepy, so I always turned the lights on at night, even if we were all downstairs.

I turned on the upstairs hall light, then the light in the master bedroom. I still didn’t know why they called it that; Dad and Mom weren’t the masters of anything. The next room was the bathroom, with a tub that sat right in the middle of the floor and had weird brass clawed feet on it. Then my and Haley’s room, with the old leather chair that was perfect for reading on a rainy day, and the bunk beds, and all the weird old dolls from when Aunt Julie and my mom were little kids. I always turned them around so they wouldn’t watch me while I slept.

“I call top bunk!” I yelled downstairs so Haley could hear. We always did dibs for top bunk.

I ran back downstairs to grab my bag, took it upstairs, and started unpacking. I put the clothes Mom had folded into the bureau drawers and waited for Haley to come up. Finally I heard her footsteps on the stairs.

“Haley! Did you hear me? I called top bunk.”

She popped her head in the room. “Yeah? Cool. This time, you can have top bunk and bottom bunk. You can switch each night.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m going to stay in the nursery.”

Last year, Aunt Julie and Uncle Dave turned the tiny office at the end of the hall into a nursery for my little cousin, Chloe. “You’re staying in the baby’s room?”

“Yeah,” Haley said. “They’ve got the daybed in there. That way I won’t keep you up when I’m talking to Zack or my friends.” She sounded so cheery, like this was such a great idea.

“But you always stay in this room,” I said. “With me.”

“Quinnen, I’m sixteen. I need my own space.”

I can give you space, I thought.

Haley turned and went into her room—her new room—and I threw the rest of my clothes in the bureau. I didn’t care if they were neat and folded anymore. Who was going to see them, except for me? I had the room to myself.

I turned on the little night-light, climbed up to the top bunk, and crawled under the covers. There was a little ledge up here, where I used to put a cool rock or an action figure whenever I had beaten Haley to calling top bunk. Haley always put a book on it when she stayed up here. The springs creaked as I turned over onto my side.

Haley was already on the phone in her room. The walls were so thin I could hear everything she said. “It’s okay that you say it. Really, I…” She laughed. It was a new laugh. Her Zack laugh. “Okay. It’s late. I…I love you, too.”

I rubbed the sheet in between my fingers and closed my eyes.

I didn’t know who my sister was anymore.