“Luck,” Dad and I say in a monotone. Ma’s new job is cashiering at a truck stop out by the interstate in Brewer. She’ll hate it in a week. Who wouldn’t?

Dad showers, dresses in his around-the-house sweats and Dropkick Murphys tee, joins me at the table. We eat the meat loaf; smothered in ketchup, it’s not too bad. “Should probably keep unpacking,” he says around a sip of Shipyard.

“Probably.” We glance at the stacks of beat-up cardboard boxes in the living room—the U-Haul box guarantee says they’ll survive four moves, and it looks like only just—then we each go for another slice of loaf.

Packing sucks, but unpacking is the worst. It’s basically life’s way of saying, hey, in case you were hoping for a fresh start, here are your scratchy bath towels and the lamp nobody likes, to remind you how impossible that is. Unless you’ve got a million dollars. And a Milton Bradley Facial Reconstruction Kit for Beginners.

After clearing the table, I return to the stoop with my book. I’m a big reader, total escape artist, but this time, it’s a prop; I haven’t cracked the cover yet. I’m waiting for somebody, testing a theory. If Bree and Sage watched us unload the Penske truck, one of them must live close, with a view of the paved walkway and parking lot. From what I’ve seen, nobody uses their street entrances here. The real living’s done out back, where the woods wait beyond the neighbors’ charcoal grills and plastic playhouses. Dense woods, mostly pitch pines, those trees that don’t seem to be able to sustain their own limbs, multiple amputees with black, scabrous bark.

Ten minutes later, Bree proves me right, walking between our house and the one next door. From this angle, she looks spare, straight up and down, a raw frame bulked with loose clothing. She senses me and stops dead, glancing over. I’d been mentally rehearsing what I would say, but now I just stare back at her, gripping my book.

She comes over to the edge of our unit’s walkway. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I haven’t been able to get the sight of her and Sage escaping into the woods out of my head. That was almost five hours ago. Wonder what that’s like, having a partner in crime. Mine’s been mostly a solo act so far. Not by choice. It’s just tough to commit while wondering if you’ll even be around long enough for these people to sign your yearbook. I never quite fit in our last town, Astley, over in Western Maine; I tried the no-friends thing there, and I’m here to tell you, it sucks. The label of Desperate Loner Chick holds zero mystique. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Matter-of-factly. A pause. “What’d you think of school?”