When a handsome guy named Malik stops Blandine after class and asks if she wants to live with him and two other boys in a four-bedroom apartment near the river, Blandine says sure. Later, she’ll wonder what made her accept his offer so swiftly: an investment in her life, or an indifference to it? She’s got to live somewhere, she reasons, and boys don’t scare her. Men don’t scare her. Nobody scares her. Nobody can break into you if you break out of your body first.
