My two french braids had more hair outside of the plaits than in. Exactly like I felt. Straggly and messy and always finding a way to climb beyond the parameters I was given.

“I don’t want to walk all the way to Cadence Park,” Marley announced.

The sky, like a healing bruise, had started to lighten. “Where do you want to go?”

“I need to think.” She turned onto Arbor Street. We were headed toward the abandoned train tracks. It was the only place worth going when walking east.

“What do you need to think about?” I dared to ask. She looked sideways, taking in my every feature. I fixed my posture and lifted my chin, only seeing her through my peripherals. Glancing her way would show her I cared too much about hearing her answer.

“I have to figure something out. I’m doing the Adventure differently this year.”

“Really?” I tripped over my own eagerness, stubbing my toe on a crack in the pavement.

A few years back, she’d started something she only ever called the Adventure. It was always a scavenger hunt of sorts, sending the eight of us all over Cadence in pursuit of a goal Marley never fully explained. She said we’d know when we got there. The Adventure happened every year, right around the middle of summer. Marley would show up to Cadence Park with crossword puzzles to do or riddles to solve and she’d say, “It’s time.”

The actual adventure itself was already different every year. Calling attention to that would only make her less likely to explain when she meant, so I bit my tongue. The only constant there’d ever been was that one thing was supposed to lead to another, and another, on and on until we reached her final destination or goal. Whatever it was. No one ever made it far enough to even know.

Instead, every year it became a game centered on who would be the last to give up altogether.

“I bet it will be great,” I decided to say. “It always is.” When it came down to it, we all liked having something to do. Summers in Cadence could be listless, swelling too large with the unexplored possibilities around us.

“You’re sucking up. You guys all hate it a little bit.”

“Not me,” I protested. “Everyone else fights too much. Especially the year you made us break up into teams.”

Marley hurled a cold, choking laugh at me. “You literally pulled Aidy’s hair that year.”