I copy her deadpan expression. “Nonstop thrill ride.” She laughs; it’s a good laugh, unexpected, a little harsh. “I didn’t see you.” Such a liar.

“Then it’s working. I strive for invisibility.” She glances at our door. “Are you locked out?”

“No. My dad’s in there.”

Bree steps back. Silence. “Well. Come over, if you want. My mom isn’t home.”

She says it like, we have cookies. This is what I wanted—I think. To know more. To make it here. My stomach knots up anyway as I rap on our door, calling, “Be right back,” to Dad, who’s probably already dozing off on the futon—we do that, buy a Walmart futon when we move in, dumpster it when we move out—his feet propped on a box, TV whispering like the ocean in a conch shell.

Bree lives right next door, 8A, which has a window facing the side of our building, a perfect clone of hers—single-story, a back stoop for each of the three apartments it contains. She pulls a key from the little hip pocket of her jeans and lets us in.

Every light is on. Techno’s pumping. Somebody’s left their hot-pink Asics on the welcome mat and Bree sideswipes them without even looking. The kitchen’s identical to ours—bottom-of-the-line appliances, patterned linoleum, frosted ceiling fixture—but the surfaces are stacked with catalogs and unopened bills, the fridge collaged with alphabet magnets and school photos. Lots of life accumulated here. In the living room, a girl in yoga pants does the stanky leg, her back to us, following some dance routine on TV, so deafened by the music that she doesn’t hear us come in. As we head down the hallway, she pops, locks, drops it, and says, “Ow.”

Bree’s bedroom is the same one I chose, end of the hall, left of the master; her window is the one that looks out on our stoop. I’m caught off guard by her slate-blue walls. Dad says you’re not supposed to paint a rental. Compared to the rest of the place, her room is a tidy, muted oasis: ecru curtains and bedspread, blue throw pillows, a shag rug tossed down over the ugly high-traffic carpeting, stack of novels on the nightstand. She perches on the bed, shows a flicker of impatience when I don’t sit right away, and pats the spot beside her. I sit, feeling stupid. “Saw you reading the book for Hyde’s class,” she says. “What’s it about?”

“You’re in that class?”

“Occasionally.” Bree reaches into her bedside table drawer, pulls out a gallon ziplock bag of candy, and drops it between us. “Hope you’re not diabetic.”

“Whoa.” It’s Halloween candy: mini boxes of Nerds, Mary Janes, those little fruit-flavored Tootsies. I choose a chocolate tombstone. “When the zombie apocalypse comes, I know where I’m holing up.”