He disappeared four years ago, and I’m to blame. Now he’s back. I call it the vanishing summer. Everett, my best friend and the first boy I ever kissed, was kidnapped; taken from right beside me. Three months later my mom died. They were both just gone. The bright, fearless spark inside me was gone, too—blown clean out. I learned that the worst could happen at any moment and with no warning. I didn’t want to go outside anymore. I avoided the woods where Everett and I had played. I hated to let my brother and my dad out of my sight. For four years, I lived with a pounding heart and shaking hands. But I’m sixteen now, and ready to find my way back to myself, to somehow move forward. Therapy is helping. I let one new friend into my life, and she’s helping, too. I’m trying this new thing where I act like the old me—unafraid and confident and bold. I’m doing scary things and trying not to let them scare me. Then one night as I’m sitting outside in the dark, Everett walks through the trees and back into my life.

Can reality be better than a daydream? My overactive imagination has wrecked things for me again. Dreaming up the perfect boy and giving him Joe’s face was my first mistake, because he’s just not into me. I have been crushed by my crush, and that will not happen again. I’ve learned my lesson. Any guy interested in me is going to have to do all the daydreaming, all the yearning, and all the pursuing. I’ve set my heart on someone for the last time. Enter Owen Anderson. I’ve never been the object of someone’s desire, and that’s fine. It’s no big deal if I graduate high school without my first kiss. I’ll suffer through it if it means I don’t have to feel the sting of rejection again. The first order of business is to make sure I don’t daydream about anyone, especially Owen Anderson. Owen, who finds me crying in the stairwell over Joe. Owen, who’s there when I learn I won’t be working with Greta and I’m afraid we’ll drift apart. Owen, who sees me at my most overwhelmed by my responsibilities to my family. Owen, who cannot possibly see me as anything other than a walking disaster. Just once I’d like him to see me strong and capable with decent hair. Not that it would matter if he did, because he’s way out of my league, and I’m not going to let myself think of him in that way. Or think of him at all. Nope. No way. But he keeps showing up, and I keep wondering if maybe, just maybe, Owen sees something more in me than I think he sees.

Joe Hudson broke my heart. The last thing I want is to be trapped with him at basketball camp. Coaching a skills camp for little kids was supposed to be a fun way to say goodbye to my high school basketball career. A bridge between my old life and new beginnings. But coaching with the guy who broke my heart last summer? That was not the plan. But there he is, across the gym. He hasn't even said anything yet, and already I’m remembering the way my name sounds on his lips. As he comes closer, old feelings are stirred up and all I can think of is the way he used to hold me. No. Joe is my past—a very painful and heart-wrenching past. He will never be allowed to hold my heart again. But we’ll be stuck together day after day, so we have to figure out a way to play nice. And I have to figure out a way to keep him from getting under my skin.