It was Sunday morning, and Riley was helping me clean up the mess in my room. Kim needed to be home in time for church with her family, and since Heather was her ride, the two had left before Riley and I were even awake.
We stayed up most of the night talking about all sorts of things, like how Kim was too obsessed with her online gaming—a problem Heather thought could be solved with a boyfriend—and how Riley thought the new American history teacher was cute in a scholarly, Harvard professor sort of way. But most of all, we talked about Cole and the Walters. I spent the whole night constantly trying to change the subject, but it was as if Riley’s and Heather’s brains were hardwired to think about Cole every half an hour. It wouldn’t have been so awful if they hadn’t kept insisting that I liked him, and vice versa.
“It was really cool of Mrs. Walter to let us stay over,” Riley added as she shook a blanket out, holding it by two end corners. A few stray pieces of popcorn were launched into the air, but she ignored them and started to fold up the flannel fabric.
“Yeah, Katherine’s been awesome to me.” I’d moved on to cleaning up the nail polish. Heather had dumped the entire box over in search of the perfect pink.
“You know, you’re pretty awesome too,” she said. After setting the newly folded blanket on my bed, she dropped onto the floor next to me and helped me with the bottles. “Most people can’t put up with Heather and me. We’re a little…”
“Intense?” I offered.
“That’s a nice way of putting it, but yeah.”
I shrugged. “Back home, I have this friend Sammy who reminds me of you both. The girls at my old school think she’s weird, but she’s just super passionate. You know, the kind of person who comes off as crazy because she cares too much?”
Riley grinned. “Sounds like we’d get along.”
“Totally.”
A minute passed as we finished picking up the nail polish. When all the different colors were off the floor, Riley sat back on her heels and tucked a strand of bright red hair behind her ear. I was about to pick up the cardboard box and put it back in the closet, but she looked at me then, a strange half-happy, half-sad expression on her face.
“So,” she asked slowly. “Are you…settling in okay?”
It was the closest she had come to asking about my family, and in the silence that followed, I realized that I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s only been a week,” I finally replied, even though that didn’t answer her question. And then I added softly, “Everything is so crazy here.”
“How so?”
“Living with the Walters—I feel like I never know what’s going to happen. It’s so—” I broke off, not able to think of the right word.
“Unpredictable,” Riley said.
“Exactly.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Looking down at my hands, I turned them over as if they held the answer that could help me explain how I felt. “I don’t know,” I told her, still struggling. “It’s like I have to keep my guard up 24/7.” I glanced back up at Riley to see if she was following me, but the look on her face said she was lost.
“Why do you need to have your guard up?”
“Because,” I told her, a discouraged sigh hissing out my nose, “I have to be ready.”
“For what? A zombie apocalypse?”
I gave her a look. “No, just stuff. Life stuff.”
“Well,” Riley said, her eyebrows scrunched together. “That seems like a lot of work.”
“What does?” I asked.
“Trying to be ready for everything.”
“Not literally everything,” I told her. “But life’s a lot easier if things run smoothly.”
“Sure,” Riley said, “but it’s also no fun if there aren’t any bumps. Not knowing what’s going to happen every once and a while makes things all the more interesting.”
I was suddenly overwhelmed, the lack of sleep from the past night catching up. “But if you don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said, throwing up my hands in frustration, “if you’re not prepared, that’s when you make mistakes.”
“Mistakes can be good things, though.”
I just looked at her.
“Okay, take me for example,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared, as you like to say, for my first boyfriend. He was older than me, more experienced. We dated for about four months and then he broke my heart.”
“I don’t see how that’s good,” I pointed out.
“Okay, well, maybe that wasn’t the best example,” Riley said, “but if I could do it again, I would.”
“Why?”
“Because he was my first love. Those first four months, as quick as they went, were a whirlwind of bliss. Sometimes you have to let your heart take the lead.”
“But if I can prepare for things—”
Riley laughed. “You can’t prepare for love. It’s not like taking your driver’s test or the SATs. It’s a gift. One that can happen at any moment.”
“How did we even get on this subject?” I asked. “I thought we were talking about my move.”
“We’re talking about it because you’re afraid to take a chance.”