I found myself thinking of our verbal exchanges in terms of the verbs we’d use to transcribe them. Every time I

came up with said, I knew we were okay. Asked or

– replied — shakier ground. Even joked could be dicey.

And yelled — that meant trouble. Shouted could mean that the other person was simply too far away to hear.

But – yelled — that meant the boiling point.

Our apartment didn’t have any good doors to slam. If

you wanted to slam a door, you would either end up in

the hallway or trapped in the bathroom. Those were the

only options.

yesterday, n.

You called to ask me when I was coming home, and

when I reminded you that I wasn’t coming home, you

sounded so disappointed that I decided to come home.

Z

zenith, n.

I’m standing in the bathroom, drying my hands on your

towel, and you’re hovering in the kitchen. I am happy

from dinner, happy the day is over, and before I can ask you what’s going on, you tell me there’s something we

need to talk about.

This is it, the moment before you tell me the precise

thing I don’t want to know.

Is this the zenith? This last moment of ignorance?

Or does it come much later?

acknowledgments

I would like to thank all of my friends who read an earli-er form of this book as a story I gave them for

Valentine’s Day. In particular, I would like to thank Billy Merrell, Ann Martin, John Green, Eliot Schrefer, and

Dan Ehrenhaft, whose reaction to the story made me be-

lieve in it enough to take it further.

Thank you to Bill Clegg and Jonathan Galassi for

helping me to make this book everything it could be.

Thanks also to Jesse Coleman, Shaun Dolan, Alicia Gor-

don, and everyone else at FSG and WMEE, as well as the

book’s foreign publishers, whose enthusiasm is deeply

appreciated.

Finally, thanks to my various families. My family of

friends. My family of YA authors. My family at Scholast-

ic. And, most of all, my real family—Mom, Dad, Adam,

Jennifer, Paige, Matthew, Hailey. It’s so much more

meaningful to have you share this with me.