Spencer

Riley didn't seem to know how to act around me after our first morning together. It was nice not to be the only blushing one, for once. Nice to know he cared, because he wouldn't be acting so careful and uncertain around me if he didn't.

And it was especially nice to have our next session to look forward to.

The whole thing put me in such a good mood, I finally didn't feel angry just looking at Randall. He was surprised, I could tell, when I joined him for lunch after Annaliese and Riley holed themselves up in her room. They still hadn't told me what all these doctor's appointments were for, but I had learned the pattern of them and I had learned that Anna usually wanted to be mostly alone afterwards, or maybe with just Riley for company. I wasn't going to intrude on that.

Randall was already eating a salad when I joined him in the dining room. I felt his eyes on me while I made a sandwich, though he looked down at his plate as I settled down across from him at the table. It was almost amusing to see how uncomfortable he looked. As soon as I realized I was kind of enjoying his discomfort, I cleared my throat and said, "Hi, how are you?"

He took a long swig of water before answering, "I'm well. And yourself?"

So formal. Had my mother ever once been this formal with me? I didn't think so, not even as a joke. "I'm okay."

Silence fell again while we ate, but this stupid niggling voice in my head reminded me: there's no point in being here if you aren't going to try and make a connection with him.

Only, that wasn't strictly true anymore. I was enjoying connecting with Riley very much, and I genuinely thought I might come out of this with an actual sisterly relationship with Annaliese. If that was all that came out of this trip... well, honestly, that was possibly the best-case scenario. I still wasn't totally convinced I even wanted to get closer to Randall. But I wasn't quite done giving Randall the chance he had asked for.

I tried again to start a conversation. I meant to keep it simple instead of jumping into conflict, but my mouth got ahead of me. "Why am I even here?"

He jerked and looked at me with what appeared to be a mixture of surprise and alarm. "Excuse me?"

"I came because you said you wanted to get to know me. Well, I'm here, and you aren't even trying." Again, where were these words even coming from? I wasn't here to pick a fight. I really, really wasn't. But I couldn't seem to help myself. Decades of bitterness could only be squashed down so long. And even if I had figured out how to be okay without a father growing up, I still very much remembered what it was like to be a kid with just a mom and all the ways that had sucked for us both, no matter how much she loved me.

Randall looked down, and it sent another flare of anger through me, hot enough to make my chest ache. The least he owed me was to look at me, no? But he just stared at his hands while he said, "It was clear you wanted some distance. I was just honoring that."

"Well, I'm not taking any distance right now, yet here you are still doing your best to pretend I'm not here."

God, I felt like a teenager again. When was the last time I felt so misunderstood, so outraged over things I couldn't control? I had to sound like a teenager, too, picking a fight with his parents. I hated that he made me feel this way.

Randall finally looked up at me, seeming reluctant. "I'm not," he said. Then, he seemed to reevaluate once he took in how upset I actually was. "I'm sorry if I made you feel that way."

Ha! As if he ever cared about whether I felt acknowledged by him.

I slid out of my chair and tossed the rest of my sandwich out. I wasn't hungry anymore, anyway. Before I could storm out, Randall caught hold of my elbow and pulled me back. He looked strangely desperate. "You're not leaving, are you?" he asked.

"No," I said, cooling off just a little. It was gratifying, how anxious he looked about the prospect of me leaving. The most selfish, immature part of myself needed to push it further. "But I might go back early. I haven't decided yet."

"Oh. Just... don't make any decisions yet, okay?" He kept watching me, and I wished I understood what was going on in his head. I was getting all kinds of confusing signals from him.

I nodded and went upstairs to the haven that was my bedroom. I shut the door behind me before throwing myself face-down on the bed. It still didn't feel as comfortable as the one I had at home, and I was seriously contemplating going shopping for a new pillow since these were too squashy, but it still felt good to be shut away in a private space after such a tense talk.

I didn't understand it. I hadn't come here to pick a fight with Randall. I came in good faith, wanting to make a connection with him. But something about him rubbed at me the wrong way. It was like I was a vat of gasoline and he was a lit match. I couldn't seem to help myself.

Had I come here looking for a fight, after all? Looking to make him suffer where I could see it before finally granting forgiveness? I didn't think so, but how much introspecting had I really done before getting on that plane?

Or maybe it was something about Randall, himself. He only ever apologized to me once, and it didn't seem sincere. If he really saw the light after Annaliese's health scare, why wouldn't he be more earnestly trying to get to know me?

This is temporary.

Sure. The trip might be temporary, but the repercussions of it would haunt me for the rest of my life if it ended poorly.

You can go home anytime.

Yeah, that was true...

But Riley. And Anna. They were worth staying for.

Suddenly, I didn't want to be alone. Without thinking it through, I left my room and crossed the hall to knock on Anna's door. Riley swung it open and already had his smiling mouth open to greet me before his eyes swept over my expression and he said, "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Is that Spencer?" Anna asked before I could answer.

Riley swung the door open wider and stepped back so I could come in. Anna was sitting on her bed while Riley took his normal chair. After a second of hesitation – and after Anna patted the space beside her, I joined her on the bed.

"What is it?" Riley asked again.

I shook my head, suddenly certain I was overthinking everything. Of course, these talks with Randall were bound to be hard. It made sense that they would get heated sometimes while we unpacked so many serious issues. It was so much easier to be levelheaded when I wasn't alone or with my father. "It's nothing," I said.

Anna and Riley exchanged looks. "Are you sure?" Anna asked. I didn't get the sense she was trying to be nosy; it just seemed like she was giving me the opportunity to vent if I needed it. I really appreciated that, and it only helped me cool off further.

"Yeah, I'm good."

Now Riley smiled again, leaning back in his seat and staring up at the spinning ceiling fan with a look of contentment I envied. Though, I wasn't sure whether that was because I wished I could feel similarly content just from sitting around watching a fan spin or because I wished I was the one who put that expression on his face.

"So, what are we going to do this afternoon?" Riley asked.

"Hmm..." Annaliese mused. "It's getting hotter. Pool day?"

"No way, it's still way too cold for that," Riley argued. He was always complaining about being cold, even when everyone else around him was overheated. And I smiled, because I knew exactly what Anna's response would be before she said it: freeze baby.

"Freeze baby," she shot back.

My smile widened. I liked that I was starting to learn the pattern of their conversations. It made me feel closer to them both. I didn't know what there was to do around here, and I didn't really care what we did as long as I was being included, so I sat back and watched them talk.

"Maybe you just run freakishly warm," Riley rebutted.

"Yeah, sure," Anna snorted. "You were the only kid who wore a parka to our camping trip in sixth grade, but I'm the freak."

"'It's not my fault I was the only one prepared."

"It's not about preparedness, Riley. We were camping in May. Freaking May."

"It still gets cold at night in May," he argued, then looked to me. "Back me up."

"Um, yeah," I stuttered at being called on so suddenly. "It can get cold at night for sure."

"Pfft, you're just agreeing with him because-" Annaliese started, then her eyes widened and her mouth snapped shut.

I blushed, since I already knew where she was going with that. Riley seemed undaunted, however. "Because what?" he asked tauntingly, sitting up to watch her with amusement.

For a moment, I thought she might be cowed and back down. Instead, she smirked right back at him and said, "Because you're sleeping together."

My cheeks felt hot, signifying the blush I knew was spreading. I wasn't sure why, exactly. I had never been shy about sex. My mother had led so many open discussions about it over the years that my options were to combust from embarrassment or to grow up and accept it as a normal activity many people enjoyed.

Annaliese's eyes slid my way, and every hint of smugness in her expression evaporated. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you."

What really embarrassed me was that she had called me out. Besides, if it was Riley blushing right now (and he wasn't – I checked), she wouldn't be apologizing to him; she would be teasing him even more. I understood why she treated me differently, but I hoped someday it would change.

"We're not sleeping together," Riley said, drawing the attention away from me. Before I could be hurt by his words – even if they were the truth, strictly speaking – he winked at me with a salacious smile. And I understood that this was all part of the game.

Especially when Annaliese squealed, "Oh, ugh! Stop! I don't want the details!" She clapped her hands over her ears and widened her eyes in dramatized horror, but I could see the laughter she was fighting off.

How many times had they teased each other just like this? It had to be so nice to have such history and comfort with another person.

I could barely follow that lonely train of thought before a loud beeping noise filled the room. I automatically turned in its direction and found Annaliese scowling down at her abdomen. She lifted the edge of her shirt and pushed a button on a rectangular black device hooked onto the top of her pants. It looked sort of like a really old iPod, I mused, but I knew that couldn't be what it was.

"Sorry," she said, looking up at me with a rueful smile. "It's my insulin pump. The cartridge needs replaced."

"Oh. Um, I'll leave you to it," I said, scrambling off her bed. How had I never realized that was there? It was small, but surely it must have shown at some point, right? Or... I thought back and realized that Annaliese did seem to favor longer shirts, the flowy kind that hung down over her pants. Maybe that wasn't a fashion choice, but a means of hiding a health condition.

"I'll come with you," Riley said.

I smiled at him and hoped that was code for "Let's go make out on your bed."

We made it to my door before he hesitated and said, "Actually, let me swing by the bathroom real quick."

I nodded and went to wait on the bed. Out of habit, my phone was in my hand the instant I sat down, and my fingers started typing before I even thought through how invasive this was: "Can diabetes cause brain hemorrhage?"

It took me a few tries to spell "hemorrhage" (what is that extra 'H' doing in there? And why was the 'R' doubled but not the 'M'?), but soon I had confirmation that diabetes was indeed linked to increased risk of brain hemorrhage in patients under sixty, which was a category that Annaliese certainly fell into.

My first thought: how terrifying, to have a lifelong health condition that put you at risk for more.

My second thought: was Annaliese's diabetes such a secret that Riley felt the need to sidestep when I asked what caused her hemorrhage? Because he told me they didn't know yet what caused it, but Anna was really casual about her insulin pump just now. Or maybe he just hadn't wanted to talk about it? It didn't sit well with me, but I understood not wanting to get into other people's health issues. Honestly, the fault was probably with me for asking him in the first place.

And in the end, I just really hoped it wouldn't happen to Annaliese again in the future.

I closed out my web browser and was just opening up a crossword app when Riley quietly entered my room and shut the door behind himself. His eyes heated when he saw me and he slowly crossed the room. "Where were we?" he asked when he reached the bed.

"Nowhere yet," I answered, setting my phone down on the nightstand.

"Yet?" he asked, smirking.

"Yet," I repeated, and reached up to grab his shoulders and pull him down over me on the bed. We wouldn't go very far, I knew. The door didn't lock and too many people were home. But even just this – just the feeling of Riley pressing me down into the bed while his lips moved with mine, and hands sliding under clothes to feel the skin underneath – was enough.