I breathed a deep sigh of relief. They were gone. I stood there on a corner I’d known for my entire life and leaned against the limestone of my building, which had been there since 1895. I knew I was totally afraid of them and that I really needed to either throw myself at their mercy, or lose them entirely and start fresh. And if I did that, if I lost my friends, who would I be? I had no idea. Patch had saved me from having to choose who was coming on this trip with me, but I knew that problem obviously wasn’t half as important as I’d been thinking it was. And that’s when I saw the black English cab the Halstead Real Estate company uses to ferry buyers around. It pulled up in front of my apartment building, and another couple of young, rich-looking people came out of my front door, with one of those real estate ladies who wear way too much gold. They were talking in low voices and then they got into the car. I shook my head. I definitely, definitely couldn’t handle both at the same time—losing my friends and moving to Brooklyn.
