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sunken face and overly rosy cheeks form back in front of me in the mirror. I try smiling. I’ve heard that you can’t cry if you tell yourself how beautiful you are whilst smiling. Maybe it works the same for anger?
    I don’t know who I’m angry at, less if it’s anyone else but myself.
    Walking to the staircase, I squeeze the post to remind me I’m here, that Ella is upstairs getting changed, that I need to go tonight. Pretend all I want, I’m headed towards people who know stuff about me, who’ll want to voice their concerns. And that’s priority one I control. Their worry is stupid, though. I value no one more than Ella. Not even myself.
    Tonight’s like a test, a show, to see if I’m capable and normal. I’m not, and that’s why I have to go.
    Ugh, if Liam gangs up on me with her tonight . . . friendship over.
    I can keep it together for one night. No matter that I’m uncomfortable in crowds. I’ll stop my rambling thoughts. I repeat, there is only one answer. I must accept the challenge.
    I am good enough for Ella.
    I try that smiling thing again and walk to Ella’s bedroom. If I can get through Mom’s party, I might be able to show I’m fine to look after Ella still.
    I don’t know who I’m showing more: my mom or myself.

R eality sinks in when I’m in the car on the way to my parents’ house. The Dayles are coming for the party.
    But—no. Brent isn’t coming tonight. I only remember because Mom loves him as much as Liam. She hates when the Dayle boys are unavailable, but Brent must have had a good reason to stop her complaining.
    Shit. Oh, shit. He isn’t coming because it’s his birthday too. Or was that yesterday?
    I imagine my mom wishing him a happy birthday, and they appear more like family than her and I are. She gets this glint in her eye when she sees him. I always wonder how she seems so happy at gatherings, but it’s people like Brent, his brother, and everyone else that makes her happy to escape. Even after the abuse I had from her growing up I can see that she almost seems nice when she rests her hands on their shoulders, kisses their cheeks and asks how they’ve been.
    Brent and Mom are the perfect pair. She pumps her face with beauty products and he has what she wants: icy blue eyes that are more shocking than Liam’s, and a height beyond my mom’s capability of reaching to kiss hello.
    Brent, in appearance and personality, has barely changed since his teenage years. Unlike Liam whom, when he stares at me, I have no idea of what he’s thinking any longer.
    One time, when Liam and I were fifteen and Brent was eighteen, we were meant to go to the movies to escape a regular Burnell versus Dayle Friday night catch-up. This is what Liam and I thought was the plan.
    “I’m out,” Brent called. He jingled his keys.
    “To where, sweetie?” his mom, Anna, said. Even at eighteen, she couldn’t help but query everything he did.
    “ Out . I already said that.”
    Liam gave me The Look. When Anna turned, he asked, “Can me and Katie come? There’s that, er, movie we wanted to watch.”
    I nodded as if I’d been waiting to see this “movie” all week.
    “It’s Katie and I, Liam.” Anna smiled, proud, and craned her neck back to the open front door, where we could see Brent through the window. “Sweetie, wait up for Katie and Liam.”
    “Cool. Thanks, Mom.”
    “Where to?” Liam said to Brent when we were outside the house.
    Brent wore jeans, dress shoes and a button-down shirt, a leather jacket draped over his arm. Overly dressed for the movies but I didn’t say that aloud.
    “Youse, or me?”
    Brent pointed his finger behind us, but I didn’t notice anything. Liam shrugged with his hands still nestled inside his pockets. When we looked back, Brent had already walked to the curb. He whipped his leather jacket out of his hands and pulled his arms into it.
    I was about to call to Brent when the thumping bass of a remixed Madonna song sounded, getting closer by the