SIOBHAN VIVIAN is the acclaimed author of The List, Not That Kind of Girl, and A Little Friendly Advice. She currently lives in Pittsburgh. You can find her at www.siobhanvivian.com.
“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
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
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