“It is not often that

      someone comes

      along who is a

      true friend and

      a good writer.”

      – E. B. White

      TO MY GIRL, JENNY HAN

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       About the Author

       Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

       CHAPTER NINETEEN

       CHAPTER TWENTY

       CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

       CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

       CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

       CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

       CHAPTER THIRTY

       CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

       CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

       CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

       CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

       CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

       CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

       CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

       CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

       CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

       CHAPTER FOURTY

       CHAPTER FOURTY-ONE

       EPILOGUE

       Acknowledgements

       Copyright

PROLOGUE

      On the first day of my senior year, I happened to walk past the auditorium during the freshman orientation assembly. One of the two heavy oak doors, each with the Ross Academy crest inset in stained glass, had been propped open. There were only enough students inside to occupy the first few rows of stiff, uncomfortable seats, and the emptiness gave the place a hollow sound that surely made the freshmen feel even smaller and more overwhelmed. I had a free period and a hall pass, so I ducked inside, for old time’s sake.

      It took all of three minutes before I wanted to scream.

      Freshman orientation is a colossal waste of time. Or at least, the way our school handles it, forcing new students to sit through a word-for-word recitation of the Ross Academy Handbook, performed in a monotone by the guidance counselor nearest to death. There weren’t many dos in the Ross Academy Handbook. It was pretty much a recitation of don’ts, from Don’t use your phones during school hours to Don’t run at an inappropriate pace in the hallways. More than half the students struggled to stay awake, while the rest focused on subtly and not-so-subtly checking each other out.

      If it were up to me, things would be run a lot differently.

      First off, I’d split up freshman orientation by gender. For boys, there’d be a simple presentation, done in ten minutes tops. In fact, I could probably cancel their assembly altogether and just hand out a memo. Because there were only three things that added up to a successful high school experience for guys: doing your homework, wearing a condom (if you were so lucky), and deodorizing your leather school shoes every night, because foot sweat plus polyester dress socks makes for unbelievably rank conditions.

      Obviously, things would be more involved for the girls.

      I’d run their orientation like those scare ’em straight drunk-driving lectures, where the police department parks a mangled, twisted car on the front lawn of school, and a guest speaker cries about how he accidentally killed his best friend on the way home from a party. Except instead of the danger of drunk driving, I’d have a speaker talk firsthand about the danger of high school boys.

      I know one girl who’d be perfect. She was in my class freshman year. She was nice. Friendly, even to weird kids. Popular, but not enough to make someone jealous, and pretty in a way that was easily overlooked. A few weeks after starting high school, she hit social pay dirt. She found herself a boyfriend.

      Chad Rivington stood almost twice her height — an intimidating size until you watched him tuck himself into his rusted baby-blue VW bug, which he loved even as it fell apart. He was a senior with decent grades, nice teeth, and a spot on the varsity basketball team. In other words, he was a catch for a girl of any grade, but especially for a freshman.

      They met in the nurse’s office — her with a migraine, him brandishing a savage paper cut with the hope of escaping Spanish II. By the end of the week, they were a couple. By the end of the month, they were the couple.

      They