Friday after school I did my homework, collected eggs, fed Terry Johnson, had dinner with Francine at exactly six o’clock, and loaded the dishwasher, and then Francine practically shoved me out the door to walk to Kira’s house.

“See you in the morning,” she said. “Ten o’clock.”

“I have Salishwood. I’ll drop my stuff off here at eight, walk there, and then be back here by four. Okay?”

“Right,” she said, scribbling it all on her wall calendar. “Got it. Eight and four.”

“Eight and four.”

“Salishwood still okay? Homework’s getting done?”

“You’ve got the password—you can check whenever you want.”

Poor Francine. She was not a fan of logging in to the school website to see my grades. I had to help her every time, and then there wasn’t anything exciting; everything in on time, as usual. Marks fine, as usual. Reliably unextraordinary.

“I’ll take your word for it. Don’t you girls stay out too late.”

“We won’t.”

I could not believe I was doing this. That Francine was not only letting me but sort of pushing me to walk to a classmate’s house. To spend the night. Then off to a party destined to ruin my life…all on purpose. To be with Kira and Sean. For fun? I had my toiletry kit, my pajamas, the tangled chain in my pocket, and a burning pit of worry in my stomach.

But beneath the burning pit, I wanted to go. Maybe I could do this; I was nearly an adult, I had to stop being ridiculous—an adult could have fun with friends sometimes without losing her ability to exist independently in the world. Right?

The sun was setting as I walked to Kira’s house, where she pulled me into the front door and booked it up the stairs until her mom called out, “Kira!”

She was Kira’s height, hair up, jeans, sleeveless white blouse. They looked so much alike. Minus the tattoos.

So strange to be in a house that I didn’t live in. That I was invited into. It was all warm wood and windows, full of pink sunset light and not much else. Some furniture, a couple of rugs, a few paintings on the walls. Like they hadn’t finished moving in. But also—like everything that needed to be there was.

I have lived in some cluttered-ass places: messy bedrooms, stacks of boxes of who knows what, way too much furniture—people like to have a lot of things. And I mean, no judgment—all God’s children and whatev. Francine’s house was cozy. Still unnaturally quiet for me, but cozy and not as empty as Kira’s, though not cluttered.

Kira’s house was magnificent.

On a shelf in the stairwell were three little birds carved from wood and painted with muted, saturated colors. They stood in a row on delicate wire legs.