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First Published in Great Britain in 2015
by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
First published in the USA in 2015
by Alfred A Knopf,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books,
a division of Random House LLC,
a Penguin Random House Company, New York
Text copyright © 2015 David Levithan
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First e-book edition 2015
ISBN 978 1 4052 7343 5
Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1623 9
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Please note: Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties or advertising. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.
For my nephew, Matthew
(May you find happiness every day)
CONTENTS
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I watch his car as it pulls into the parking lot. I watch him get out of it. I am in the corner of his eye, moving toward its center – but he isn’t looking for me. He’s heading into school without noticing I’m right here. I could call out for him, but he doesn’t like that. He says it’s something needy girls do, always calling out to their boyfriends.
It hurts that I can be so full of him while he’s so empty of me.
I wonder if last night is the reason he isn’t looking for me. I wonder if our fight is still happening. Like most of our fights, it’s about something stupid, with other non-stupid things right underneath. All I did was ask him if he wanted to go to Steve’s party on Saturday. That was it. And he asked me why, on Sunday night, I was already asking him about Saturday. He said I’m always doing this, trying to pin him down, as if he won’t want to be with me if I don’t ask him about it months ahead of time. I told him it wasn’t my fault he’s always afraid of plans, afraid of figuring out what’s next.
Mistake. Calling him afraid was a big mistake. That’s probably the only word he heard.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
“I was talking about a party at Steve’s house on Saturday,” I told him, my voice way too upset for either of us. “That’s all.”
But that’s not all. Justin loves me and hates me as much as I love him and hate him. I know that. We each have our triggers, and we should never reach in to pull them. But sometimes we can’t help ourselves. We know each other too well, but never well enough.
I am in love with someone
