I’m not sure what I’m doing here. I should be at home, figuring out how to stay in Riverton when Aunt Sarah leaves or planning out what I’m going to say to my mother when I finally work up the nerve to track her down. Except I’m pretty sure that second part is the whole reason Ellis invited me tonight. You look like you’re about to flip a car or something, he said, as I finished stacking the kayaks at the end of my shift, after Aiden and I returned from our two-hour escape-via-canoe. My arms are still a little shaky from the long day of lifting and pulling and rowing—I don’t think there’s any car-flipping in my near future.

He was right though. If I weren’t on my bike, my bathing suit riding up under my sundress as I pedal, I’d be trying to hunt down my mother. I’d be showing up to whatever hotel she’s allegedly at and spilling my guts about how messed up it is that she gets to win the lottery after years of being a shit mom and doing everything wrong. I’d cry and leave my heart lying on the carpet of some hotel, and she’d just stand there. Cool and calm. No, confronting my mother never ends with anything but me being frustrated and her looking like she’s won. Won what, I don’t know. Certainly not me.

A group outing after the first day of work—when I barely even know anyone’s name, thanks to my midday escape and Ellis’s prank—really isn’t my thing. Big groups of new people, late-night outings I know nothing about—not my usual. But the dice I rolled at The Cherry Pit said differently. Odd numbers, I would have stayed home. Curled up in bed, cracked a book, and eventually fallen asleep to the sounds of Catastophic Love seeping out of my little bedside speaker. By now my sheets would be sprinkled with slice-and-bake cookie crumbs.

But here I am, thanks to lucky number eight. When I got home, I had put together my arsenal of taking chances. An old deck of cards Aunt Sarah keeps in a cabinet over the refrigerator, next to her bottles of wine and a cup full of old corks; and the pair of dice that are now in the beach bag that’s slung over my shoulder, dangling dangerously close to my feet as I pedal along the county road that leads to River Depot. There’s a Magic 8-Ball on my desk now—it used to be Aunt Sarah’s, and I had to dig it out of the closet where we keep all of our board games. If Emma saw my new collection, she’d say even my plans for giving up control are too organized and neurotic.