COVER

DEDICATION

To Jenny, who Believed in times of doubt

To Laura, who Strengthened in times of weakness

To Erin Rene, who Loved no matter what

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ONE

I HAD IT FROM A very reliable source that Imogen Klutz was watching the total solar eclipse from the roof of Piles Fork High School.

I mean, technically I heard it from Holden, who heard it from Jessica, who heard it from Brittany, who saw Imogen post about it online, only to promptly delete it two minutes later. But Holden was trustworthy. And Jessica liked to gossip, and Brittany lived every moment of her waking life on social media, so… it wasn’t exactly an unreliable source.

“Have you asked You Know Who to the You Know What yet?” Holden asked me.

You Know Who was Imogen, and You Know What was prom. And no, I hadn’t. My excuse was that I was an antisocial loser with crippling anxiety who had no intention of branching out of my small, sad, pathetic world, thank you very much. I mean, my greatest strength was math, for Christ’s sake!

I was condemned to a life of celibacy. I had accepted this fact.

Holden told me to shut my Valium hole—as best friends often do—and then told me of Imogen’s eclipse plans. And then he told me of our plan. We had a plan, apparently.

The plan was simple: We’d break into school, too. And then—under the magic of the total solar eclipse—I would ask Imogen to prom.

That was all fine and dandy. Except that if Imogen was watching the eclipse from the roof of Piles Fork High School, it was guaranteed that Wynonna Jones would be there. And Wynonna Jones’s favorite hobby—aside from photography, jamming to ’80s rock, and macking down on pork rinds—was making my life a living hell. It was part of who she was. A key ingredient to her identity.

“What about Wynonna?” I said. “You know she’ll be there, too. I mean, it was probably her delinquent idea.”

“I’ll keep Wynonna preoccupied,” said Holden. “You just worry about asking You Know Who to the You Know What.”

“But you hate Wynonna.”

“More than anything in the world,” Holden agreed. “But I care about your antisocial loser ass more than I hate her. So are we doing this or what?”

Little did we know, traversing Carbondale an hour before the eclipse—even on foot—was a low-key nightmare.

“I’m trying to decide if this is a really cool thing or a nightmare,” said Holden. “Because every time I see another schmuck wearing a fanny pack, I lean more and more toward the nightmare scenario.”