Free The Space Between by Brenna Yovanoff

dingy brick building with a sign out front reading THE AVALON APARTMENTS. A boy is bouncing a hard rubber ball against the wall, his breath like smoke in the cold air. When I approach the double doors, the sidewalk feels uneven beneath my boots.
    Beside the entrance is a panel of buttons, lettered and numbered, but if there’s a password, I don’t know it. I push numbers randomly, but nothing happens. After a moment, the boy stops bouncing the ball to watch.
    “It’s broke,” he tells me. “You don’t got to buzz in—just open it.”
    When I pull the handle, the door swings wide, squealing against my weight. It opens into a stairwell with a large number 1 painted on the wall. According to Obie’s file, Truman lives in apartment 403, and so I begin to climb. The stairwell smells damp and is nearly as cold as the air outside. The sound of my boots is almost deafening.
    When I step out onto the fourth-floor landing, three girls are sitting on the floor. All of them are wearing tennis sneakers and extremely short skirts. They look away when I approach and pull their feet up to let me pass.
    Apartment 403 is at the far end of the hall. I knock crisply and when no one comes, I knock louder. When I press my ear to the door, I can hear muffled noises inside, but it takes several minutes of bumping and rustling before a short, stocky man answers, blinking hard in the light from the hall.
    “Is Truman Flynn available, please?”
    The man’s eyes are squinted to slits and his hair seems slightly on end. “He’s not here.”
    With my hands clasped in front of me, I smile without showing my teeth. “Can you tell me when you expect him back?”
    “Sweetheart,” he says, closing his eyes and sighing deeply before he answers, “I’ve got no idea.”
    I thank him for his time and leave the building, trying to conceal my disappointment, trying to think what do to next. I’m outside, almost to the sidewalk, when one of the skinny girls in bare legs and tennis sneakers comes running out after me.
    “Hey,” she calls. “Hey!”
    Her hair is limp and stringy, flopping against her shoulders as she jumps down the front steps. I stop and wait until she catches up. She has on a jersey athletic shirt with a zip-front and is pulling it tightly around her shoulders. She comes to a stop in front of me, looking skittish and out of breath.
    “Who are you?” she says, staring hard. “Did one of the Macklin brothers tell you to come here? I mean, you don’t know Victor or any of those guys, do you?”
    “No,” I say. “Should I?”
    The girl only steps closer, staring up into my face. “What’s your name?”
    “Daphne. What’s yours?”
    “Alexa.” She waves a hand dismissively at herself, still pinning me with her muddy eyes. “How do you know Tru? You a friend of his or something?”
    “I don’t even know him.”
    This makes Alexa raise her eyebrows and she stares up at me with deep distrust. “What do you want him for, then?”
    “I’m looking for my brother. I think Truman may have seen him.”
    “Oh.” She bends forward, picking at a scab on her knee. Then she sighs and straightens. “Okay, look—I bet you I know where he went, but you can’t tell Charlie.”
    “Charlie?”
    “Yeah, his dad. Stepdad. It’s not a big deal, but Charlie doesn’t like him going so far.”
    “How far did he go?”
    Alexa shrugs, looking apologetic. “When I saw him this morning, he was saying he might go to Dio’s later.”
    Her face is so clean that it seems reflective. I can see a soft, whirling affection in her eyes when she talks about him. It’s sweet and steady, a world away from the feverish desires of Myra and Deirdre. This must be what they mean in movies when they say “crush.”
    “Might?” I say, trying to discern how this is useful. Might is uncertain. Might is no good to me.
    Alexa sighs again, raising her hands and letting them flop back down. “He meant would , would go to Dio’s. Desmond , I