What you seek is seeking you.

—RUMI

I want a private supply of shooting stars.

I want crackers.

I want someone to come along and love me.

I want cancer.

Just kidding.

I want someone to open the notes on my phone and realize I’m a goddamn wonder.

I want better nipples.

I want alien familiars (don’t ask).

I want to be taken someplace golden, like a field or the back seat of a car, and kissed so softly I sneeze.

I want to feel safe against another person’s body.

I want to be gorgeous behind my face and stuff.

I want to know what to do about my dad dying.

I want a car.

I want a teacup pig named Betty.

I want an STD test, just in case that dream I had involving Eugene Wolf was real.

I want an ask-cute to prom so adorable it cuts me open and I crawl out of myself and find the space I left growing a paper flower instead.

Prologue

{OCTOBER}

Days ’til prom: Eons

YOU KNOW THAT MOMENT WHEN IT HAPPENS? AND YOUR LIFE goes from one long snore-fart to hell-freaking-yeah? That moment happens for me in, of all places, gym class.

It’s the second month of school and I’m running like a goddamn hero, flag in hand when, “GOTCHA!” someone shouts, ramming into me and tackling me to the ground. They follow up with “Oops, sorry.” It’s a two-hand touch.

“It’s okay,” I say, with a mouthful of grass and the weight of another person compressing my lungs. I roll over as the sun is rising over the portable classrooms that are so run-down a raccoon fell through the ceiling our freshman year. I’d just transferred to Gill School then, and all I knew about the place was it had uniforms. Plaid skirts and small mammals with hand-paws? No, thanks. But when you get kicked out of public school, you can’t really be choosy.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” the boy asks, and that’s when I get a look at him. He’s wiry, with dark hair and a few pimples and these great bluish-gray eyes that I picture swimming across.

“No, I’m fine,” I say, and I am. I’m still clutching that triangle of highlighter-orange fabric, hardly able to breathe, but I’m better than fine because a boy is finally on top of me.

“Okay, good,” he says, jumping off quickly.

“Come on,” someone from my team calls as they run by. Everyone’s returning to their sides, which means the gym teacher must have blown the whistle, but I didn’t hear it.

“You’re a fast runner,” he says.

“Thanks.” I wipe my brow. “There’s a lot of stuff I can’t let catch up with me.”

He laughs and then we look at each other. You know. Look at each other. Our eyes are like BAM! You’re a body with sex-parts. Let’s get to know each other.

Abigail says she watched the whole thing from jail (she always makes a point to be captured first) and it was a meet-cute like no other.