Three weeks flew by and their sessions together always seemed never to be enough for them which was strange since the two had begun riding Sanford's bike from school to Riley's house which gave them an extra ten minutes. Nonetheless, Riley still said her goodbyes with groans and pulled on her fence playfully as she'd say it and Sanford would feel as though his hand doubled in weight when he'd hold it up to wave farewell.

Riley hopped off the back of Sanford's bike with a kick off and made his wheels rattle. Sanford gave a soft scoff and knocked the bike down to the ground and ran for Riley's backyard. Today was a regular day but much more special.

Riley hopped on her little sister's swing set. "I wonder what we should discuss for today's session?"

Sanford followed soon after, "You didn't plan ahead of time?" He spoke with a pretend shock. Riley pointed behind her, ordering him with a playful smile to push her. He pushed her light back forward with every swing.

There was a silence and Riley looked up at the sky. "Do you have any childhood stories, Sanford? Before Northcott? Nice ones?"

Sanford took a few moments to think about this. "I don't remember any." Not one.

But as Riley's back swung towards him and his fingers touched the soft frills of her collar he remembered something. "Wait," he thought about it and saw lights before his eyes, he remembered the sun—he remembered seeing flowers and his mother in front of him. "I remember being with my mom. To the park or some garden. I'm standing behind her and it ends."

Riley gave a soft smile. "Today's my birthday,"

He rendered her swing seat to a halt and looked down at her. "It is?"

"Yeah," She laughed. Then she put down her feet and hopped off the swings. "Well get your books out, let's finish our homework first."

Uh oh, Sanford tilted his head, "Damn, I forgot my English books at home."

Riley groaned. "Really?"

Sanford was already stumbling over the swing seat on his way to the fence. "Shit, yeah." He laughed.

"Run!" Riley roared.

Moments later, Sanford returned half panting. Riley stood up to greet him and he pulled out a simple but earthily beautiful looking pinecone from his back.

She looked at it. "What's this?" She took it in her hand.

Sanford scratched the back of his head and mumbled: "It's a pinecone. Found it last fall." Riley traced her fingers around its outline with fascination. "It's not weird or bizarre like you like stuff to be but a pinecone on its own is a bit funny looking." She looked up at him. "Happy Birthday."

Riley stared at him for a while then spoke. "The truth is, it's not really my birthday." She giggled softly then looked back down at the gift. "Today's the day I was found, I don't really know what day I was born. Birthdays never really meant anything to me. I think," She paused. "I think this is the first time I actually feel as though it's my birthday."

Sanford gave a small smile. She looked down timidly and leaned in to nudge him softly by the arm but let her head gently fall to touch his chest and she stood there, staring at his shoes. "Thanks." Sanford felt his cheeks heat up to the smallest degree.

Suddenly Sanford laughed, "I forgot to bring my English notebooks."

They laughed.

Riley put down a piece of paper by the pinecone which she left on her desk. The paper read "Sanford's present." She leaned down to take a good look at it and couldn't help but feel a heat in her cheeks. She slowly walked over to her bed and landed with a thump, looking up with a small timid smile as she tried to analyze this emotion.

Lunch time had changed since Riley's arrival at Brickwall High. It's not wrong to say that it changed only for Sanford, especially since he was the only person she bothered to pay any attention to—but it changed for everyone else. Sanford stopped being that weird kid at the back of the room; he had a friend with him now. And that friend was Riley. Regardless of the fact that she hardly bothered to go out of her way to say hello to someone—when they'd ask her something, she'd reply with blithe and glee and everyone liked Riley even if she didn't exactly like them back.

To some degree, Sanford had become normal in a sense that there was something more strange than scary about him, more mystical than mysterious because Riley was mystical and because Riley was his.

But this was all unknown to Riley. She hadn't known how much of an effect she'd made on him and she was looking to find out.

Riley watched Sanford make no opposition as she sat down in front of him. No unease. He glanced at her, "What's wrong?" he said casually, reaching for his spoon.

"Nothing," she hastily replied. She reached for her own set of dining utensils and as her spoon stirred inside her apple sauce, the voice in her head stirred in her mind in search for some way she could ask Sanford all of the following: Are we best friends? Can I call you my best friend? Do you like me? Do I like you?

But little did she know that he was rummaging through his thoughts for the same things.

Sanford was whistling on his ride to Riley's house. He was whistling Daisy Daisy. As he kicked himself off his bike he imagined himself from two months ago time travelling to the present and laughing at his whistling, happy future self. It was laughable. But the happy kind. The kind that ought to have dancing along with it. Music even. He walked past the fence and his whistling stopped when he caught a sudden glimpse of bright light.

Riley stood before him, glowing like a peach and dressed like a blossom. Her hair down with a white ribbon tied around her head and the rest of her was wrapped in three soft pink fabrics. Even two-months-ago-Sanford would admit: She was the most beautiful thing Sanford had ever seen.

"Well say something, you damn dunce," Riley's yell came out as a hushed song. She pulled the ends of her hair back behind her shoulders and looked up at him after some silence, "Is it dumb?"

He wanted to call her an angel. "No."

Riley looked down at her feet with a satisfied beam then shot a bright look at Sanford—ahh, the scientist. "So I was wondering if we could skip research today!"

"Skip research? Who are you?" Sanford joked, folding his arms before his chest. Then he remembered something, "there's a Harvest Festival down the street. I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go."

Riley grinned, walking towards his bike and smacking him on the shoulder as she passed him, "you could have told me first."

"Looks like you already knew," Sanford said, running ahead of her and throwing her dress skirt up as a tease.

"I'm gonna throw you bike down the river, Clark!"

"Awfully friendly with Patrick Fischer's little girl, aren't you?"

"Jesus!" Sanford was shocked half to death by his mother as he sneaked into his house from his late night with Riley at the Harvest Fest. He took a moment to compose himself. "She, uhm," he smiled, "she makes me laugh."

He didn't know why he had said that. But it made his mother's eyes grow big and take her apron off and watch him in delight.

"Bring her over some time," She smiled. "I could use a laugh myself."

If Mr. or Mrs. Clark had opened the door at the ring, they would have been shocked to hear the first words come out of Riley's mouth be "I demand to see your room."

Sanford gave her a half lidded glare. It's funny how she could be this angel one night and be a devilish snooper the next morning. He'd have butterflies if it wasn't for her kooky demeanor. He liked her scientist side but whether she knew that he knew it or not—the difference between curiosity and research is clear to even Sanford Wesley Clark.

Readying her for the disappointment she deserved, Sanford swung the door open and leaned against the panel of it—taking a good look at his chambers, himself. Dull.

Riley scoped the room, took note of the almost completely empty desk, looked under the bed for dirty magazines, and pulled out her notebook. Sanford wondered why she had accepted his invitation so enthusiastically but now he understood that this was the only way she'd spider her way into his room without it being illegal. But wow, she was in his room. How weird was this?

Riley took a deep breath of satisfaction. She could stare at his walls all day. She found something lovable in every corner. Then she cleared her throat with an embarrassing thought, "So am I the first girl who has ever been in your room?" She asked nonchalantly, looking up from her notebook with her beady green eyes—pretending that she was still writing but again: there is a difference between curiosity and research.

He lost balance a bit at this. He had had a flashback just then of Riley the night before with her hair loose and spectacular, it almost made him want to slide the ribbon off her hair. Then he frowned a bit at how well she could tease him. "Not the first," he said, making her lose her balance. With that he shut the door behind him as he left her in his room. Ah, revenge.

"Ass!" Riley said, shutting the door behind her as she followed him. She looked up to give him a look at her tongue but Mr. Clark stood in his place. She bent to the side to see Sanford behind his father, shrugging at her embarrassment.

"Hi there," Mr. Clark said with little enthusiasm. "Son," he greeted, turning around to give his son a beam just before walking down the stair case to his left.

Riley bit her lower lip and groaned from her chest as her and Sanford turned for the stair case in unison. They made their way down, whispering playful curses at each other.

"Is that Riley?" Mrs. Clark poked her head out from the kitchen door.

"Yes, Ma'am," she leered.

"Sweetie, you're early," Mrs. Clark patted the hair on her head, "it'll be at least another ten minutes!"

"It's okay, mom, we have some stuff to talk about anyway."

"Don't worry about it one bit, Mrs. Clark," Riley put on her charming face.

"Well," Mrs. Clark was charmed, "don't let me stop you kids." And with that she turned back to her pot.

"Do we have something to talk about?" Riley said.

"Not in particular," he laughed a bit at his next thought, "But why do I feel like you do?"

"We should paint," she looked up in thought to say, not missing a beat. She jumped at the next, "or collect stamps. Which is better?"

"Neither," he didn't miss his cue, "why do I need to choose one?"

"I've figured out that you need a hobby. And," she folded her arms and rested her back on the comfortable wall of their tiny living room, "I'm saying this as a friend, not a scientist."

She felt herself get a bit giddy at this delivery. She had subtly solidified her place in his life as a friend. And he liked the friend side of her too.

"I wouldn't call my museum a hobby but it gives me a drive," she rested herself off of the wall and sauntered towards him in deep thought, "something to invest your emotions in can help you get over your trauma."

That's right, his trauma. Trauma's been driving him all these years and he's been going downhill for every second of the ride. But Sanford knows that it takes something special to be able to drive yourself.

"Or even just a simple talent you can exercise," she spoke without much thought. Sanford lit up with a tiny thought then but after further thought he sunk his neck back down and decided not to mention it.

"I don't have enough talent to have a drive," he admitted to himself and to Riley, "I lose things too often to collect and I don't have the heart for art."

Mrs. Clark spoke from inside the kitchen, "It'll be about five minutes more! Play Riley Claire de Lune while she waits, Sandord!"

"Mom." Sanford stood up.

Sure enough, she looked up and saw a small but perfect wooden piano lodged at the corner of the room with a plant and shelf cozy beside it. The wood called for Riley's touch and she almost purred at the allure of it. It reminded her so much of Sanford.

"Sanford, the museum ought to quit you for not mentioning this," she gushed light and raced over to it. "The most perfect spinet piano I've ever seen—Sanford, this is ideal."

"I'm not playing it."

"But I will," she cracked her knuckles.

"You're a crock'a shit," he ragged in disbelief.

"You jerk, I'll prove it!"

Daisy, Daisy

Give me your answer do

I'm half crazy all for my love of you…

She played poorly—with giggles between words and time taken to find the next note which dragged the last syllable of her song on for too long. Her fingers slipped at times and the wrong note rang like an obvious error.

Her eyes didn't move an inch from the keys and she tilted her head towards him with a whisper, careful not to break her conversation as her hands went along with the rest of the song. "Come on, show me how"

He couldn't shake off the thought of yesterday night's Riley anymore. Now he had three of them to deal with, as if one wasn't enough: the scientist, the friend, and the one from yesterday night. But they were now one and it was mesmerizing.

He smiled a bit then took his place behind her, stretching his arms forward to frame hers. She shook a bit.

"What are you doing?" She said with a nervous swallow.

He took hold of her right hand with his right and her left with his left, Riley was brought directly in front of him with her head beside his and his arms cradling the outside of her arms. They looked as if they shared the same wrist and their fingers belonged to one person.

"I know the song, you sing and I'll play," he said. She cleared her throat with a light laugh, trying to pull herself together.

Daisy, Daisy

Give me your answer do

I'm half crazy all for my love of you

It won't be a stylish marriage

I can't afford a carriage

But you'd look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two

She would have made an effort to remember the notes or even make an effort at singing but he had her by a hook. She had never been this close to him nor had she ever seen him so out of character. She'd been ridiculously taken and her singing sounded more like a whimper with a melody.

The last note put a smile on both their faces but then Riley noticed that Sanford made no motion to move away from her so she took another breath and felt his hands over hers for one more second. She felt so comfortable. She could rest her head against his now and fall asleep. But her chest wouldn't let her—she'd brought a drum with the piano and it was teasing her with its beat. But she liked this song and she felt so comfortable.

"Sanford," she started

He was snapped out from his daze. What am I doing? He pulled back a bit; his hands graced her wrists gently. But then she grabbed back his hands in weak opposition. "Wait," she said with red cheeks. After some more silence she said, "Could you put your arms around me?" She gave him a look over her shoulder, "just for an experiment," she lied.

He swallowed nervously and let himself drive his hands over to her waist then cross the delicate ribbon around her stomach to wrap himself around her body tightly. He rested his head in her hair. She held his arms around her with the strongest heat building from her cheeks. And for a second, she couldn't remember the name of her museum.