Title Page

LOVE, HEATHER

A Novel

Laurie Petrou

Dedication

For all the kids hiding in stairwells. I see you.

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Stevie took a piece of me; she became a piece of me. That’s what writing is. Yes, she’s fictional, but I’d like to thank her anyway, for helping me reconsider things I thought I knew or believed.

The first real person I’d like to thank is my dynamo agent, Martha Magor Webb, who is wise and kind and damn good at her job. I owe you such a debt, MMW.

Thank you to my editor at Crooked Lane Books, Chelsey Emmelhainz, who never once doubted this novel and to the whole Crooked Lane Books team: I am so happy we found each other. Thank you for all your tireless work.

To Helen Reeves, Plot Doctor, my continual thanks for asking frustrating questions that need answering.

Thanks to Elan Mastai, Duana Taha, Sandra Ingram, and as always, Nicole Bell, for reading early drafts that ranged from ramblings to ideas to half-formed concepts. Love and gratitude to Celeste Taylor and Carter Weston. Your insight was invaluable and means so much to me.

To my support system: my girlfriends and my family—immediate, extended, and chosen. To Mom and Dad and Mike and more. I thank my lucky stars that I have you all in my life.

And finally, first, and always: Eli, Leo, and Jay. Ours is a house full of books, stories, readers, and storytellers. Thank you for all of it. May it always be so.

Prologue

It sits at the bottom of her bag like an anchor and a parachute, this thing that will hold her steady and set her free. Over and over, she reaches in and touches it, weighs it in her hand, feels its cool potential, its power. She withdraws. Not now. Not yet. The school buzzes around her. Laughing, joking, pushing, shouting. No one knows what she can do. No one has ever known.

Part 1: March

MARCH

Chapter 1

1

Episode 65 00:00

Hello, cinephiles, FlickChick subscribers old and new! I’m back, bringing you the best in rants and raves about classic and contemporary films, basically anything that strikes my fancy. In this episode, we talk high school films. That melting pot of cool and cruel, that place that will change you for the better and worse. It’s where memories are made, right? In my mind, the very best high school movies are from the eighties and nineties. Of course, that might just be because of the clothes and music. Let’s dig in.

Lottie and I are in her room, listening to records. She is sitting on the floor with her eyes closed, and I am flopped on her red-and-blue-checkered bedspread, looking through a pile of albums. I look around me at the assorted piles of crap.

“God, your room is a disaster,” I say.