Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

“What’s wrong with that?”

Sitting with one leg crossed over the other in the camping chair in Mr. Rhodes’s garage, I eyed his son. He was sitting on the floor with a cushion he’d pulled out of somewhere with his writing notebook propped on a knee. We’d been going at writing advice for the last hour, and I wasn’t going to say we were arguing, because Amos was way too conservative around me, but it was about as close as he was capable of. He had yet to roll his eyes too.

This was our fourth session together, and honestly, I was still stunned he’d knocked on the door weeks ago and asked if I was busy—I hadn’t been—and if I could check something he’d worked on.

I couldn’t remember ever feeling so honored.

Not even when Yuki had lain on her guest room bed beside me and whispered, “I can’t do this, Ora-Bora. Will you help me?” I hadn’t been sure I could, but my heart and brain had proved me wrong and we’d written twelve songs together.

Plus . . . he was a shy kid, and that alone touched me.

Satan couldn’t have dragged me away from helping Amos.

So that was what I’d done. For two hours that day.

Three hours two days later.

Two hours almost every day after that.

He had been so shy that first time, listening to me rambling mostly, then shoving his notebook in my direction, and we’d gone back and forth like that. I took it seriously. I knew exactly what it was like to show someone something you’d worked on and hope they didn’t hate it.

Honestly, it humbled me that he had taken such a huge step.

Slowly but surely though, he’d started to open up. We discussed things. He was asking questions! Mostly, he was talking to me.

And I loved talking.

Which was exactly what he was doing then: asking why I thought that his writing a real deep love song was out of his league. It wasn’t the first time I’d tried hinting at it, but it was the first time I straight out said maybe not to.

“There’s nothing wrong with you wanting to write this song about love, but you’re fifteen and you don’t want to be the next Bieber, am I right?”

Amos pressed his lips together and shook his head a little too rapidly considering the former teen pop star was a bazillionaire.

“I think you should write about something close to you. Why can’t it be about love but not romantic love?” I asked.

He scrunched up his face and thought about it. He’d shown me two songs, both of which weren’t ready; he’d made that clear about a dozen times. They had been . . . not dark but not what I’d been expecting at all. “Like about my mom?”

His mom. I lifted a shoulder. “Why not? There’s no love more unconditional than that if you’re lucky.”

Amos’s scrunched-up face went nowhere.

“I’m just saying, it’s more heartfelt if you feel it, if you experience it. It’s kind of like writing a book; show don’t tell. Like there’s this . . . producer I used to know who has written a lot of hit love songs . . . He’s been married eight times. He falls in and out of love in the blink of an eye. Is he a scumbag? Yeah. But he’s really, really good at what he does.”

“A producer?” he asked with way too much doubt in his tone.

I nodded. He still didn’t believe me, and it made me want to smile.

But I preferred that than him knowing. Or expecting something.

“Maybe that’s why you’ve been struggling so much trying to write your own music, Stevie Ray Junior.”

Yeah, he wasn’t biting. But I had learned he got a kick out of me using certain musician’s names as nicknames. I missed having people to pick on, and he was such a good kid.

“Okay, tell me, who do you love?”

Amos sneered in this way that made me feel like I was asking him to take a nudie and send it to a girl he liked.

“Okay, your mom, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Your dads?”

“Yeah.”

“Who else?”

He leaned back on one hand and seemed to think about it. “I love my grandmas.”

“All right, who else?”

“Uncle Johnny, I guess.”

“I guess?” That made me laugh. “Anyone else?”

He shrugged.

“Well, think about that. About how they make you feel.”

His sneer was still there a little bit. “But my mom?”

“Yeah, your mom! Don’t you love her the most?”

“I don’t know. The same as my dads?”

I still hadn’t gotten any further with the “dads” thing. “I’m just throwing out ideas.”

“Did you ever write songs about your mom?” he asked.

I’d heard one of them playing at the grocery store a week ago. I’d ended up with a headache behind one eye by the time it had finished, but I didn’t tell him that. “Only almost all of them.” That was an exaggeration. I hadn’t written anything new since I’d spent the month with Yuki. There hadn’t been all that much to inspire me since, or a need. Personally, writing used to come so easily to me. Too easily according to what Yuki and Kaden used to say. All I ever had to do was sit down and words just . . . came to me.

My uncle said it was why I talked so much. There were always too many words bouncing around in my head and they had to come out somehow. There were worse things in life.

But I hadn’t heard the words that had come to me so randomly for most of my life in forever. I wasn’t sure what it said about me or where I was in life now that the absence didn’t scare me. Especially not when I knew for sure that at some point, it would have been terrifying.

Looking back on it, the words had tapered off over the years. I wondered now if that should have been a sign.

“I feel like my best songs were the ones I wrote when I was between your age now and twenty-one. It doesn’t come as easily to me now anymore.” I shrugged, not wanting to tell him more.

Part of it, I thought, was that I had been younger and more innocent. My heart had been more . . . pure. My grief more rabid. I’d felt so, so much back then. And now . . . now I knew that the world was split about fifty-fifty, if not seventy-thirty with assholes versus good people. My grief, which had been what consumed so much of my life, had tapered with time.

I was pretty good from twenty-one to twenty-eight, when I’d been at my peak in love. When things had been great—not as great now that I thought back on all the things that had been said and done that I had brushed off. But I’d thought for sure I’d found my life partner. It hadn’t come as easily, but I’d still felt the words there, lying right under my heart, ready.

Back then, I’d still woken up in the middle of the night with strings of words on my tongue.

Except for the one album I’d written with Yuki, while I’d been grieving the loss of my relationship, with the emptiness of accepting that some things weren’t forever so fresh, I’d pulled even more words out of myself. We’d gotten that album done in a month while both of us had broken hearts.

It was some of my favorite work.

Nori had written some of it with us, but she was a machine of music who pushed hits out like she shit out rainbows; she took words and brought them to life. I was the bones, and she was the sinews and pink fingernail beds. It was amazing. A gift from God.

But I couldn’t and wouldn’t tell Amos any of this. Not yet. It didn’t matter anymore.

All I had left anyway was a box full of old notebooks.

“I was thinking about taking a class . . .” he started to say, and it was hard for me not to scrunch up my nose.

I didn’t want to talk him out of doing anything he wanted to do, even if I thought it was pointless. Writing songs wasn’t math or science; there wasn’t a formula in the world for it. You either had it or you didn’t.

And I knew Amos did because the two songs he had shown me, humming them quietly during our last session, were beautiful and had so, so much potential.

“Why not?” I said instead, plastering a smile onto my face so he couldn’t read my mind. “Maybe you’ll learn something.”

He gave me another one of his dubious looks. “Do you think I should?”

“If you really want to.”

“Would you?”

I was busy trying to come up with some polite way of saying no when Amos sat up straight and his eyes went wide.

He was looking at something behind me.

“What is it?”

His mouth barely moved. “Don’t make any sudden movements.”

I wanted to get up and run, his face was that serious. “Why?” Should I turn around? I should turn around.

“There’s a hawk behind you,” he said before I got a chance to.

I sat up even straighter. “A what?”

“A hawk,” he kept on whispering. “It’s right there. Right behind you.”

“A hawk? Like a bird?”

Bless Amos’s sweet soul, he didn’t make a sarcastic comment. He said, calmly, sounding very much like his dad from how serious he was speaking, “Yes, a hawk like a bird. I don’t know them like my dad does.” His throat bobbed. “He’s huge.”

Slowly, I tried to look behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small figure just outside the garage. Even more slowly, I turned the rest of my body—and the chair—around. Like Amos had warned, there was a hawk right there. On the ground. Hanging out. He was looking at us. Maybe just at me but probably both of us.

I squinted. “Am, is he bleeding?”

There was a squeaking sound before I felt him crawl over to sit on the floor beside me. He whispered, “I think so. His eye looks kinda swollen.”

One eye did look bigger than the other one. “Yeah. Do you think he’s hurt? I mean, he shouldn’t be hanging out like that, right? Just standing there?”

“I don’t think so.”

We sat there quietly together, watching the bird watch us. Minutes passed, and he didn’t fly away. He didn’t do anything.

“Should we see if we can get it to fly away?” I asked quietly. “So we can tell if it’s hurt?”

“I guess.”

We both started to get up, and reasoning hit me. I patted him on the shoulder to get him to stay down. “No, let me. Maybe he’s a Navy SEAL hawk that doesn’t give a fuck, and if we scare him, he’ll attack. You can drive me to the hospital if he gets me.” I thought about it. “Do you know how to drive?”

“Dad taught me a long time ago.”

I eyed him. “Do you have a permit?”

The expression on his face said it all. He didn’t.

“Oh well.”

I was pretty sure Amos snickered a little bit, and it made me smile.

Not going too fast or too slowly, I got to my feet. I took a step forward, and the bird didn’t give a shit.

Another and then another step and still, he refused to do anything.

“He should’ve flown off by now,” Am whispered.

That’s what I was worried about. Ready to cover my face if he decided to go crazy on me, I kept going closer and closer to the bird, but he didn’t care. His eye was definitely swollen, and I could see the discoloration of blood on his head. “He is hurt.”

“Yeah?”

I got two feet away from the hawk. “Yeah, he’s got a gash on his head. Aww, poor little baby. Maybe his wing is hurt too since he’s not going away.”

“He should’ve by now . . .” Am whispered.

“We have to help him,” I said. “We should call your dad, but my service doesn’t work down here.”

“Mine neither.”

I wanted to ask him what to do, but I was the adult. I had to figure it out. I’d watched a show about game wardens before. What would they do?

Put it in a crate.

“By any chance do you have a crate in your house?”

He thought about it. “I think so.”

“Can you go get it?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to put him in it.”

“How?”

“I have to grab him, I guess.”

“Ora! He’ll rip your face off!” he hissed, but I was too busy being focused on him worrying about my safety to focus on anything else.

We were becoming friends. “Well, I’d rather have a few stitches than he get hit by a car if he goes off by himself,” I said.

He seemed to think about it. “Let’s call Dad and have him come and get it. He’ll know what to do.”

“I know he will, but who knows how far he is, or if he’ll even be able to answer the phone anytime soon. Go get the crate, and then we can call and ask, deal?”

“This is stupid, Ora.”

“Probably, but I won’t be able to sleep tonight if he gets hurt. Please, Am, go grab it.”

The teenager cursed under his breath and slowly walked way around the bird—who still didn’t move—before taking off running into his house. I kept on watching the majestic bird as he just waited around, crazy sharp eyes looking from side to side with those insane neck movements of his kind.

Getting a good look at him . . . he was huge. Like literally massive. Was that normal? Was he on steroids?

“Hey, friend,” I said. “Wait here a second, okay? We’ll get you some help.”

He didn’t respond, obviously.

Why my heart started beating faster though, I really didn’t get. Never mind, I guess I did. I was going to have to grab this big son of a bitch. If my memory served me correctly—from all the episodes I’d seen of zoo shows and the one game warden show—you just kind of had to . . . grab them.

Could they smell fear? Like dogs? I eyed my new friend and hoped like hell he couldn’t.

Two seconds later, the door to the house burst open and Amos was out, setting a big crate down on the deck before running back inside. He was back out another second later, shoving something into his pockets and then picking up the crate again. He slowed down as he got closer to the garage and walked way around where the bird was still standing. He was breathing hard as he slowly set it down between us, then pulled out some leather gloves from his pockets and handed those over too.

“This is the best I could find,” he said, eyes wide and face flushed. “You sure about this?”

I slipped the gloves on and let out a shaky exhale before giving him a nervous smile. “No.” I kind of laughed from the nerves. “If I die—”

That got him to roll his eyes. “You’re not doing to die.”

“Make up some story about how I saved your life, okay?”

He looked at me. “Maybe we should wait for my dad.”

“Should we? Yeah, but are we? No, we have to get him. He should have flown off by now, and we both know it.”

Amos cursed again under his breath, and I gulped. Might as well get it over with. Five minutes from now wasn’t going to change anything.

My mom would’ve done it.

“Okay, I can do this.” I tried to hype myself up. “Just like a chicken, right?”

“You’ve picked up a chicken before?”

I eyed Am. “No, but I’ve seen my friend do it. It can’t be that hard.” I hoped.

I could do this.

Just like a chicken. Just like a chicken.

Opening and closing my hands with the big gloves on, I bounced my shoulders and moved my neck from side to side. “Okay.” I inched closer to the bird, willing my heart to slow down. Please don’t let him smell fear. Please don’t let him smell fear. “All right, love, pal, pretty boy. Be nice, okay? Be nice. Please be nice. You’re beautiful. I love you. I just want to take care of you. Please be nice—” I swooped down. Then I shouted, “Ahh! I got him! Open the crate! Open the crate! Am, open it! Shit, he’s heavy!”

Out of the corner of my eye, Amos rushed over with the crate, door open, and set it on the ground. “Hurry, Ora!”

I held my breath as I waddled, holding what I was pretty sure was a steroid-taking bird—who wasn’t struggling at all, honestly—and as fast as possible, set him inside, facing away from me, and Amos slammed it shut just as I got my arms out of there without getting murdered.

We both jumped back and then peeked through the metal gate.

He was just hanging out in there. He was fine. At least I was pretty sure he was; it wasn’t like he was making faces.

I held up my hand, and Am high-fived it. “We did it!”

The teenager grinned. “I’ll call Dad.”

We high-fived again, pumped up.

Amos hustled back inside his house, and I crouched down to look at my friend once more. He was a good hawk. “Good job, pretty boy,” I praised him.

Most of all though, I’d done it! I got him in there! All by myself.

How about that?

An hour later, I ran down the stairs at the sound of a car outside. Amos had said that his dad would be by as soon as possible. After relaying the information over, we’d split up, both of us too riled up with adrenaline to get back to writing; he’d gone back in to play video games, and I had gone upstairs. I had planned on going into town and hitting the shops to find something to send to Florida, but I had to know what was going to happen to my new friend.

By the time I opened the door into the garage, Mr. Rhodes was already out and walking over. He was in his uniform, apparently working on the weekend, and I’d be lying if I said that my mouth didn’t water a little at the way his pants hugged his muscular thighs. But my favorite part was the way his shirt was tucked in.

He was hot as shit.

“Hi, Mr. Rhodes,” I called out.

“Hi,” he actually replied, those long legs eating up the distance inside.

I went to stand next to the crate. “Look what we found.”

He took his sunglasses off, and his gray eyes settled on me briefly, eyebrows shooting up just a little. “You should’ve waited,” he said, coming to a stop in front of the crate too and then bending over.

He stood up straight almost immediately, looked at me, and then crouched that time, setting the leg of his sunglasses inside of his shirt as he said, in a weird, strained voice that didn’t sound pissed off . . . just strange, “You picked him up?”

“Yeah, I think he’s on ’roids. He’s pretty heavy.”

Mr. Rhodes cleared his throat and hovered there before his head tipped up toward me. He asked very slowly, “With your bare hands?”

“Am brought me some of your leather gloves.”

He peeked into the crate again, staring in there for a long, long time. Actually, probably just a minute, but it felt a lot longer. He only said one thing in that same strange tone. “Aurora . . .”

“Am said we should wait, okay, but I didn’t want my friend here to run off and then wind up on the street and get run over. Or something else. Look how majestic he is. I couldn’t let him get hurt,” I rambled. “I didn’t know hawks got that big. Is that normal?”

He pressed his lips together. “They don’t.”

Why did he sound so strangled? “Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt him?”

He brought a big hand up to his face and smoothed it down from his forehead to his chin before he shook his head. His voice turned soft as his gaze moved back in my direction; he eyed my arms and face. “He didn’t hurt you?”

“Hurt me? No. He didn’t even seem to care. He was very polite. I told him we were going to help him, so maybe he could sense it.” I’d seen videos all the time of wild animals turning passive when they could sense someone was trying to help them.

It took me a moment to realize what was happening.

His shoulders started shaking. Then his chest. The next thing I knew, he started laughing.

Mr. Rhodes started laughing, and it was rough and sounded in a way like an engine struggling to come to life, all choked and harsh.

But I was way too disturbed to appreciate it because . . . because he was laughing at me. “What’s so funny?”

He could barely get the words out. “Angel . . . that’s not a hawk. It’s a golden eagle.”

It took him forever to stop laughing.

When he finally did, he just started cracking up all over again, these big belly laughs along with what I was sure were a couple of fresh tears his hands scrubbed away as he laughed.

I think I was too stunned to really appreciate that rough, unused sound.

But once he stopped laughing for the second time, he explained—wiping his eyes while he did—that he was going to take my friend to a licensed rehabilitation facility and he’d be back later. I blew my friend a kiss through the crate, and Mr. Rhodes started laughing all over again.

I didn’t think it was that funny. Hawks were brown. My friend was brown. It was an honest mistake.

Except for the fact that apparently, eagles were several times bigger than their smaller cousins.

I left to go into town then, buying some gifts for my family before circling back to the grocery store. By the time I got home, the Parks and Wildlife truck was back. Most importantly though, there was a long ladder propped against the side of the garage apartment, and at the very top rung was a big man holding a can in one hand and aiming it toward the seam between the roof and the siding.

I parked my car in its usual spot and hopped out, ignoring my bags in the back seat so I could see what was going on. Wandering toward the ladder, I called out, “Whatcha doing?”

Mr. Rhodes was about as high up as he could possibly reach, the arm holding the can extended about as far from the rest of his body as possible. “Filling holes.”

“Do you need help?”

He didn’t reply before he reached a little over to the side and apparently filled in another hole.

For bats.

He was filling in holes for the bats.

Since I hadn’t had another visitor, I’d forgotten all about him filling them in.

“I got one more and I’m done,” he said before scooting over just a little toward the side and filling in another. He tucked the can into the back band of his pants and climbed slowly down.

I watched his thighs and butt the whole time. I wasn’t proud of myself.

He’d changed from his uniform into jeans and another T-shirt. I wanted to whistle but didn’t.

He finally hopped down and turned, taking the can out from where he’d stashed it.

“Thank you for doing that,” I told him, eyeing the gray hair mixed in with the brown. It looked so nice on him.

Mr. Rhodes’s eyebrows rose a little bit. “Didn’t want you to give me that one-star review,” he deadpanned. Shocking the shit out of me.

First, he’d laughed earlier; now he was making a joke? Had he gotten kidnapped by aliens? Had he finally figured out that I wasn’t some creep?

I wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t like it mattered. I was going to embrace it. Who knew when the next time he was this friendly was going to be? “It would have been like a three,” I told him.

One corner of his mouth went up just a little.

Was that a smile?

“I was about to put up that bat house that almost killed you next,” he went on.

He was joking with me. My first changeling. I didn’t even know how to respond, he surprised me so bad. As I picked my jaw up off the ground, my mom’s voice spoke softly into my ear and I pushed my shoulders down. It was my turn to get serious. “Would you mind showing me how to do it instead?” I paused. “I’d really like to know how.”

He towered over me, watchfully, like maybe he thought I was joking. But he must have been able to tell I was serious because then he nodded. “All right. Let’s get you some gloves and what we’ll need.”

I brightened up. “Really?”

His eyes bounced from one of mine to the other. “If you want to learn, I’ll show you.”

“I really do. Just in case I ever have to do it again.” I hoped not.

He dipped his chin. “I’ll be right back.”

While he went inside to get the gloves, I grabbed my bags from the car and took them upstairs. By the time I made it back, Mr. Rhodes had lowered the ladder and moved it back to where it belonged on the other side of the garage apartment. He brought around the ladder that had tried to kill me and dipped back into the house to grab the bat house that he’d brought downstairs at some point.

“Take the house,” he said, holding it in his arms.

Take the house, please? Ooh.

I smiled and reached to take it. We headed off toward the same tree I had attempted to use the last time. How he’d pinpointed it, I had no idea. Maybe I’d left the imprint of a human body in the dirt around it. “Did you have a busy day?” I asked him instead.

He didn’t look at me. “I spent all morning on a trail because a hiker found some remains.” He cleared his throat. “After that, I took a golden eagle to a rehabilitator—”

I groaned. “It really was an eagle?”

“One of the biggest ones the rehabber has ever seen. She said she had to weigh close to fifteen pounds.”

I stopped walking. “Fifteen pounds?”

“She had a good laugh over you snatching it up and putting it in the crate like it was a parakeet.”

“Good thing I like bringing people joy.”

I was pretty sure he smiled, or at least did that thing that would only be considered a smile on his face, this mouth-twisting thing. “It’s not every day someone grabs a predator and calls it a pretty boy,” he said.

“Amos told you that?”

“He told me everything.” He stopped. “I’m going to set up the ladder right there.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

“She is going to be okay. The wing didn’t look broken, and the rehabber didn’t think her skull was fractured.” He moved around me and asked, “Have you used a drill before?”

I’d never even used a hammer until a couple weeks ago. “No.”

He nodded. “Hold it steady and press the button.” He showed me, holding up the black and green power tool. Mr. Rhodes’s eyes met mine. “You know what? Practice right here.” He pointed at a spot on the tree before setting up a screw on the tip.

I nodded and took it from him. I did it, screwing it in in about a split second. “Nailed it!” I glanced at him. “Get it?”

He didn’t do that partial smile that time, but you couldn’t win them all. “It’s a screw.” He gestured upward. “Get up there. I’ll pass you everything and talk you through it. I won’t be able to get up there since it’ll be over weight capacity,” my landlord warned.

I bet it would. He had to weigh over two hundred pounds, easy.

I nodded though and started climbing up before a touch on my ankle made me pause and glance down.

“If you can’t hold anything, drop it. Don’t fall or let it fall on you, understand?” he asked. “Drop it. Don’t save it with your face. Don’t break its fall.”

That sounded simple enough.

“Get up there and do it.”

I could do this.

I smiled and finished climbing up. He carefully handed over the drill and screws before giving me a tube I didn’t recognize. Glue? My knees started shaking, and I tried my best to ignore them . . . and the way the ladder seemed to move a little too even though he was holding it.

“Careful. You got it . . .” he said as I blew out a breath. “You’re doing great.”

“I’m doing great,” I repeated, wiping my hand on my jeans when I realized it was sweaty before picking the drill back up.

“Set it down. See that tube I handed you? It’s open. Put a drop on the screws, just to get them to really stick,” he instructed from below.

“Got it.” I did what he said, then called down, “If I drop it, run, okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, angel. Time for the drill.”

“Aurora,” I corrected him, blowing out a shaky breath. That wasn’t the first time he’d called me the wrong name, I was pretty certain.

“Okay, you only need one screw. It doesn’t have to be perfect,” he instructed, before handing out more steps that I followed with slippery hands. “You’re doing great.”

“I’m doing great,” I repeated after I’d double-checked that the screw was in well and he’d handed up the bat house. My arms were shaking. Even my neck was tense. But I was doing it.

“Here,” he said, holding up a bottle as high as possible. I recognized it as the attractant that Clara had sent me a screenshot of when she’d realized hers was expired.

Aiming my face away, I sprayed it. “Anything else?”

“No, now pass me the drill and glue and get down.”

I peeked down. “Please?” I joked.

And his stony, serious face was back.

Much better.

I did what he asked, knees still shaking, and started to climb down. “I’m not that—oh shit.” My toes missed a step, but I caught myself. “I’m fine, I meant to do that.” I peeked down at him again.

Yeah, his hard face was still there. “I bet you did,” he muttered, amusing me way more than he probably meant to.

I finished climbing down the steps and instantly handed over the extra screws. “Thank you for helping me. And doing the foam stuff. And being so patient.”

His full lips pressed together as he stood there, watching me again, his gaze moving over my face.

Mr. Rhodes cleared his throat, and all the hints of playfulness I’d seen glimpses of before disappeared. “I did it for me.” His serious voice was back even as his gaze flicked to a spot behind me. “Don’t want you screaming at the top of your lungs in the middle of the night, waking me up.”

My smile faltered before I caught it, and I reminded myself that it wasn’t like I wasn’t aware he didn’t really like me. All this was just . . . him being a landlord and a decent guy deep down. I’d asked him to show me what to do, and he had. That was it.

But it still hurt even though I knew it was stupid. It took everything in me to keep my face neutral. “Thanks anyway,” I told him, hearing how funny I sounded, but taking a step back. “I don’t want to take up more of your time, but thanks again.”

Mr. Rhodes’s lips parted right as I half-assed waved.

“Bye, Mr. Rhodes.”

I headed back into the house before he got anything else out, holding on to my triumphs for the day. That was what I wanted to linger over. Not over his wishy-washy moods.

I’d picked up a fucking eagle and set up my own bat house all by myself. I’d learned how to use a drill. It was a win across the board. And that was something. Something big and beautiful.

Next thing I knew, I was going to be catching bats bare-handed. Okay, that was never actually going to happen, but right then, I felt like I could do anything.

Except get my neighbor to like me, but that was okay.

It really was.