She opened up the case and put the CD in the player, so that all she’d have to do when she got home was push play.

Track 1 was the Barenaked Ladies. Summer thought the Barenaked Ladies were corny. The song made her cry.

Track 2 was another corny song with some guy warbling over a harmonica. So corny: “Once I was a hunter, and I brought home fresh meat for you.”

Summer lay on top of her comforter with her arms over her eyes, and felt like the song was pulling her heart out in pieces, through her toes and her fingertips.

The thing about Charlie was—he was the first person who Summer had ever noticed across a crowded room, who noticed her back.

She’d noticed lots of boys before. Crushed on them. Watched them.

But they didn’t notice and crush and watch her back.

Charlie did. They’d looked at each other across the auditorium, and there were . . . maybe not fireworks. Maybe not bells. But there was something.

Summer was aware of him, and he was aware of her, and she was aware of him being aware of her.

Maybe that happened to other girls all the time. It had never happened to Summer before.

She wasn’t ugly—not really. But she was the sort of girl who really pretty girls liked to hang around with because they wouldn’t be a distraction. Summer wasn’t a distraction.

She was a little short. She was a little fat. Her nose was a little big. Her best feature was probably her breasts, but she hated wearing anything that called attention to them—so they largely went unnoticed.

The guys who liked Summer in high school had gotten to know her first. She had plenty of personality.

But Summer didn’t have to wear Charlie down or grow on him. He just saw her. And liked her. And wanted to be close to her.

How could something like that go wrong?

It was the closest Summer had ever come to feeling magic.

This new CD was one corny song after another. Paul McCartney! Paul McCartney and Wings!

Summer was laid low by every one.

None of them were skippable.

She kept seeing the guy downstairs in the cafeteria, and he kept smiling at her like he had her number—and she supposed he did.

He wore tank tops and T-shirts with the sleeves ripped off. Even though it was November. He carried that little container of brown stuff that he dumped on his food. He sat by himself.

Where had he found all these sad songs? Did he collect them? Summer needed to start listening to something other than the college radio station and bands that Charlie liked.

She was four days into the new CD when she stopped at the guy downstairs’s table again. He kicked a chair out for her.