Happenstance: Part Two (Happenstance #2) Read Online Free Page B

packed away the clothes that Julianne hadn’t hung up in the closet into the dresser drawers and took a shower. The steam filled the entire bathroom, and I lingered so long that my fingers began to wrinkle.
    After taking my time through my nighttime routine, I crawled into bed and took in a deep breath. The house was so quiet at night. No bass humming through the walls. No loud television. Just the light hum of the ceiling fan and the intermittent, low hum of the central heat and air blowing through the ducts.
    Just as I began to drift off to sleep, I heard Sam’s deep voice murmuring to Julianne in their bedroom downstairs. Within minutes I heard quiet footsteps up the stairs, and then my door opened. I lifted my head to see them both looking at me.
    “Sorry,” Sam whispered. “Just checking on ya. Habit.”
    “It’s okay,” I said, laying my head back on the pillow as the door creaked closed. I lay there, thinking about how many nights they’d peeked through the door that no longer had the pastel letters hanging from it, and how strange it must be for them to open this one to check on a different girl.
    A peculiar sensation came over me, a strong feeling that I didn’t belong in that house. For the first time since I’d left Gina’s, I missed the ugly, matted shag carpet and the lopsided fan in my bedroom. The walls in this room weren’t scuffed or peeling, and the carpet was too clean. The fixtures in the bathroom weren’t dripping or caked with some kind of scum, and the dresser drawers didn’t whine when I opened them. It smelled like Downy dryer sheets and a clean, sophisticated smell unique to Sam and Julianne. The bed was too comfortable. The sheets too soft.
    I didn’t belong with Gina, and I didn’t fit into Alder’s life. There wasn’t enough time to try. The hot chocolate suddenly sounded fantastic, but I didn’t want to wake the other two people who lived in the house. A fleeting thought crossed my mind that I sort of wished they drank too much or got high so I could walk around in the middle of the night if I wanted, but then I felt so guilty for it, I could barely stand to be in my own skin.

“WHAT IS THAT?” Weston asked as we walked toward the Chevy.
    I turned to see him pointing at my backside. Like a dog chasing its tail, I made a three-sixty in the the front yard, trying to see what he was pointing at.
    He chuckled and stopped me, pulling the smartphone from my back pocket.
    “This.”
    “Oh. Julianne gave it to me last night.”
    “It’s a phone.”
    “I know.”
    “Does it work?”
    “I think so. I haven’t turned it on.”
    He handed it back to me with a smirk on his face. “You haven’t turned it on? Why not?”
    I shrugged and proceeded to the truck. “I didn’t have time to read the directions. I don’t know how.”
    After Weston and I settled into our seats and buckled our seat belts, he held out his hand. I took it. Then he held out his other hand.
    I frowned. “Are we making a secret handshake?”
    His amusement turned into a full-blown cackle. “The phone, Erin! Give me your phone so I can give you the crash course.”
    I handed it over, and he instructed me on how to turn it on, add contacts, and send text messages. He even added a couple of songs and showed me how to listen to them.
    “The most important thing during school is this,” he said, flipping a tiny switch on the side with the little bit of thumbnail he had. “It makes your ringer silent. You can change your ring tone if you want. I can show you that later.”
    “Why?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just something people do to make it their own. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but you should definitely keep it on silent. If your ringer goes off during class, you might get your phone taken away.”
    “Who’s going to call me during school?”
    “I might text you if I knew your number.” He tapped the screen twice and then grabbed his phone, punching in more numbers.