It is a blessing to have many family members and friends who accept me for who I am and who constantly support me in my work. I feel especially aware of this bounty when working on a project that explores what it looks like when that isn’t true, a project which delves into so many sensitive areas of our lives. I’m grateful, as always, to my parents as well as my brother, sister-in-law, nephew, aunts, uncles, and cousins for their enthusiasm and encouragement. I’m delighted every day by my constant writing assistants and accidental editors: my two small orange cats. And I’m fortunate to have a large cast of supporting characters in the form of human friends, too: Thanks to Emily and Katy for their advice and counsel in many areas of my work; to Will, Alice, Lia, and Iris for warmly welcoming me to their dinner table when I’m too busy writing to cook; to Cynthia for sending cheerful gifts; to Karen for listening to me babble awkwardly about what my book is about and to Pär for appreciating my procrastination cookies; to Nicole for probably a hundred thousand texts; to Liz, Jenny, Chris, Kirk, and Willa for many Monday night laughs in the midst of the heartaches; to Amy for sometimes actually answering when I call and for always sounding happy to hear from me; and to Martha for always enjoying my cat pics. Enormous gratitude to my agent Ginger Knowlton and her staff, as and the most towering of all thanks to my editor, Kate Farrell, and the team at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, who collectively helped turn this story from a manuscript into a book.