Grabbing her boots from the foyer, an eyelet strikes the hinge of the French door. The sound is tiny but clear, like a dropped earring. She waits for the shells of echo to peel away. She bites her lip, ready for her father’s voice, hoarsely calling—hoping for it, even—but there’s only silence.

A full minute passes before she absorbs that there’s only the beat of the highway in the distance. She can’t even hear her parents breathe. She carries her boots outside and ties them on the stoop, her hands trembling so hard that she knots her finger in twice. She checks the window of the master bedroom. Just snow falling against dark glass.

Every step she takes away from the front door, she expects her father to catch her by her snow pants strap. He’s been strict all her life, and she’s been careful to follow his rules. Now she’s broken one so easily. Loneliness sweeps her. No one’s watching. When she snaps through the crust of snow and walks away from the house, a chill tickles her. She shouldn’t be allowed to just leave.

The neighborhood is muffled and white. Everyone has their lights on, and TVs cheer through fastened windows. Couples hunch into cars, powdered sugar dusted on black suits and dresses. Esther’s house is by the town center, Melissa said, off the fork. Hazel heads north.

She walks a mile, seeking kids dressed for a party. Near the center she spots two boys. They don’t look old enough for high school, but Minuteman Tech starts in eighth grade.

The boys turn off at the apartment building by the gas station, and Hazel remembers: Piney Haven. That’s the address Kit repeated a hundred times in the last two weeks that sounds like a fine-smelling coffin. The complex presses up against a grove of blue firs planted so densely you’d have to squeeze to fit between them. She watches from a distance as the boys pull open the door to a unit.

Hazel wishes she’d come with Melissa and Kit. She’d have stayed close until she grew brave enough to wander alone among the crowds. And she shouldn’t have brought Ratty. He scrambles against her leg, trying to pass the pocket snap, his movements dulled by medicine.

No music or cheering broadcasts from the apartment. No one is singing. Kit and one of the Minuteman boys come out and sit in the snow on the concrete step to share a cigarette. Kit has smoked biweekly since she was eleven. Sometimes she smokes half, then packs the butt in a candy tin for later. She’s shaved her head again, this time down to the skin.

When Hazel is halfway to the steps, Kit shouts, “Hazel!” the word shooting to Hazel’s heart. She’d been scared Kit would ignore her around her new friends, but Kit throws an arm over Hazel’s shoulder, driving her into the ground.

“You came,” Kit says. “That’s so dope. This is Rob.”

Kit’s arm is heavy and comforting on Hazel’s shoulders, cozy in the snowy night. The face of the boy in question peeks from behind a knotted fringe of bangs. This is the boy whose knees Melissa sat on. He’s exactly like Hazel pictured: soft face, thick nose, elbows poking from holes in his sleeves. He releases a mouth-shaped packet of smoke. “Nice pants.”