Statistically speaking, Riri knew that things weren’t all bad all the time. Eventually, good things came. It wasn’t optimism, it was science. Unfortunately, thee opposite was also true. Things couldn’t be all good all the time, either. After the shooting at the cookout, the one that ended with Riri’s stepfather and best friend gone and Riri herself sitting numbly in a hospital waiting room raking her mind for some sort of logical explanation, she’d tried to develop an algorithm. Some kind of scientific way of predicting when terrible things would happen. She couldn’t crack it. There was no predetermined number of good things that needed to happen before tragedy interjected. It was random, it was unpredictable, it was bullshit.
And it lead to moments like this. It lead to Riri, counting all the good things that had happened in the last few weeks and wondering when and where tragedy would strike. It lead to her sitting on a park bench with her eyes locked on a nearby tree, desperately reciting statistics in her head. She registered someone sitting next to her, glanced over with a tight, polite smile. “Kind of busy here,” she murmured, pausing for a moment before turning her head. “Wait. You’re Harry Osborn, aren’t you?” She’d seen him before. Her eyes flickered across his face briefly before she turned away again. “Still busy!”