I follow him down a street lined with brick town houses that have been turned into fancy boutiques and upscale stores that feature expensive winter coats in the windows. Halloween decorations abound. A few Christmas displays are already up. It’s the loneliest thing, maybe, knowing that this year will be the first one we don’t bake cookies with Mom or help Dad put lights around the tree.

The Dunkies is in what once would have been a garden apartment, tucked beneath a toy store. We get our coffees “regular,” which is Bostonian for lots of cream and sugar. Then we head over to Copley Square and sit on the steps of the library, which looks like it should be in Paris or Berlin, maybe, with its statues and decorative iron lamps. I stretch my legs out and sigh as the warmth of the coffee burns my hands, as that pretty little Perc finally kicks in. More mellow. Takes the edge off. I have to remember how functional I can be on fives. Tens are like, Byyyyye, world.

“Better?” he asks.

I nod. “I feel warm and fuzzy again. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

“What do you do when you’re not selling drugs or ditching with me?” I ask.

“I play guitar,” he says. “Read. Go out.”

“A drug dealer who reads for fun?”

“I’m not just a drug dealer,” he says.

“What do you like to read?”

“Fantasy. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, that sort of thing.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You love Harry Potter, don’t you?”

“Hell yeah, I do. I have a Gryffindor scarf.”

“Not Slytherin?”

“The Pottermore quiz doesn’t lie: I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m one of the good guys.”

I think I kind of believe him.

“I’m a Hufflepuff,” I say.

He laughs, soft. “I like Hufflepuffs. They’re sweet.”

“You just don’t know me yet.”

“Guess I’ll have to change that.” I can hear the smile in his voice, but I can’t look at him because I like looking at him too much, I think. “So, Hannah From LA, what does a Hufflepuff do when she’s not ditching school and popping pills?”

“I used to hang out with my boyfriend. Go to the beach. Work at a coffeehouse near the boardwalk. Yoga. Tarot.”

“So I read fantasy, but you live it,” he says.

“I guess so.” I smile a little. “Maybe I have magical psychic powers.”

“I’d love to see those in action.”

“I’ll read your cards sometime.”

“It’s a deal,” he says.

The square between the library and Trinity Church is filled with people. Tourists, maybe, but lots of locals hurrying around with briefcases and backpacks.

“Everyone here seems like they have somewhere to be,” I say. “Why do they try so hard?” I watch them go, go, go. “It clearly doesn’t make them happy.”