The boardwalk twisted around moss-draped live oaks and through the bayou. The sign in the parking lot of Barataria Preserve had warned visitors not to allow small children or dogs too close to the water’s edge and to listen for the telltale rattle of snakes.

Greta was in love. In love with the gothic drips of moss and the warmth in December and the murky-sweet smell of the bayou and the risk.

“So what was Greta like as a roommate?” Carys asked Ramona. It had been Ramona who suggested Jean Lafitte Park as a destination hangout when Greta texted her about meeting up. As a New Orleans transplant, she knew all the best local spots but had also once been a new arrival who’d learned the city.

It was a Tuesday morning out of tourist season, and in the twenty minutes they’d been walking so far, they’d yet to see another soul. They’d yet to see an alligator either, and Greta kept her eyes peeled.

“She was a dream roommate,” Ramona said breezily. “Clean but not super neat, slept like the dead so I didn’t have to tiptoe around all night, up for hijinks and late-night snack runs, great conversationalist, and very open to letting me boss her around. Perfection.”

Greta snorted.

“Boss her around?” Carys asked curiously with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, you know. Very open to hearing about all her faults and the behaviors that were holding her back in life.” Ramona gave her a wicked grin.

“The real question is were you actually good at knowing them?” Greta said.

But the truth was that Ramona had changed Greta’s life more than she knew. Well. Maybe she did know. When Greta had been left alone in her dorm room with the hugs and tears of her family still imprinted on her skin, all the elation she’d felt at being free of them evaporated. She’d sat in the quiet-loud of move-in day and found her head strangely empty. She knew she should start unpacking but couldn’t quite get up off the bed.