Page 11 of Risking it All

Guess I knew what I would be doing tonight—Dumpster diving for electronics thrown away for me to resell online.

I walked into my apartment and straight into a three-ring circus. Music blared from a speaker in the kitchen. Wearing her favorite Dolores dress fromEncanto(my gift to her for her birthday) and singing “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” at the top of her lungs, Camila danced with Marsh.

Camila had a different Mom from me and Lyra, so we didn’t look much alike. She had black spiral curls that bounced with her six-year-old enthusiasm and, thanks to her mother’s Hispanic roots, flawless brown skin. My little sister could talk a mile a minute, horded stuffed animals, wanted to bring every stray animal home, and I absolutely adored her.

Exhausted from work, ten pounds lighter from sweating all damn day in the two-million-degree heat, and twenty pounds heavier from all the drywall dust, I sagged against the door as I closed it. Should I leave, shower, or join in?

“Relic!” Camila ran into me for a hug. I grunted when she slammed headfirst into my gut. She pulled back and her face pinched. “Ew, you stink.”

“What?” I mocked a gasp. “I stink?” I picked her up and hugged her tight, making sure her face was stuck near my armpit. She squealed with a bunch of “Ews,” and “I’m dying.” When she kicked, I put her down.

My eyes narrowed at the homemade splint encircling two fingers on Marsh’s right hand. Great. He just got out of a cast for a broken arm and still wore a brace he had to keep on for a few more months. Now this? “What happened?”

“Slipped.” Marsh tried to smile to play it off, but I spotted the fear in his eyes.

“Slipped?” I challenged, because I knew what he was up to last night and it wasn’t selling Girl Scout cookies door to door. While I’d said no to Eric’s offer of a job, Marsh had accepted it a fewmonths back when his family was on the verge of losing their house.

He glanced at Camila as a signal for me to let it go. “Last night didn’t go so good, okay?”

Marsh worked as a courier for Eric. He never asked what he carted in whatever package Eric gave him, and Eric never told. But evidently, last night, Marsh either pissed off whoever he was dropping the package off to, pissed off Eric, or both. A few months back, Marsh had angered Eric so much he’d sent one of his crew to break Marsh’s arm. Of course, Marsh didn’t admit to that, but I knew it and he knew I knew.

“I’ve never broken bones Dumpster diving,” I said.

“But you did get arrested—”

I tossed him a glare as he was about to say “arrested for stealing out of cars.” He stopped short, knowing I had no intention of telling Camila that tidbit.

“Sorry, bro,” he said. “Long day.”

Yeah, he could say that again.

Marsh looked like a seventeen-year-old version of a tenured philosophy professor. He had brown hair that never kept a style and a constant five o’clock shadow. Tall and lanky, my friend resembled a nerd, especially when he wore his glasses, but he was deadly in a fight, and he loved how people underestimated him. Where Lyra, Camila, and I lived a nomadic lifestyle, bouncing from place to place while staying mostly in a two-mile radius of this area for the lower rent, Marsh had lived in his house in the connecting neighborhood of this apartment complex his entire life. We’d been friends since meeting at the bus stop in first grade.

“Where’s Lyra?” I asked.

“She’s getting ready for a date,” Marsh said. “And she called me to babysit. She thought you’d be working later.” That hadbeen the plan, but evidently, my company wasn’t a company anymore. Something about debt and not paying their bills.

“I’m not a baby to sit.” Camila stuck her hands on her hips, and her lower lip protruded.

Marsh one-hand tossed her into the air like she weighed nothing, and she yelped then giggled when she hit the sofa. “Fine, she called me to demon-sit. Is that better?”

“Who’s Lyra going out with?” I asked.

“Whoever it is, Lyra looks like a million bucks on a dollar store budget,” he answered.

“He doesn’t know,” Lyra called from the bathroom.

I dropped my previously-black-but-now-white-from-drywall-dust backpack onto the floor. As I took a step for the hallway to talk to Lyra, Camila said, “There’s a fifteen percent chance of thunderstorms tonight.”

A quick pivot on my heel and I faced my younger sister. She had that seventy-year-old expression on that six-year-old body. I pointed to the map of Kentucky and Indiana we had taped to the wall for moments like this. “What does fifteen percent mean?”

Her foot rocked. “It means that there is a fifteen percent chance the area covered by our news station will see a storm, and our news station is more than our city.”

“So, that means eighty-five percent of the rest of us will have clear skies. Percentages are in our favor. Plus, did they mention a severe storm watch?”

She shook her head and her curls bounced in front of her face.

“See?” I said. “Clear skies.”

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