THIS BOOK TOOK FOREVER TO write, and it was written with the support of many.
Thank you to my editor Connie Hsu and everyone at Macmillan and Roaring Brook for helping make this book a reality and for being patient when I disappeared into the dark hole of this mystery.
I am forever grateful to my agent, Charlotte Sheedy. There is none like her. I am very lucky to have her in my corner.
A giant, emphatic thank you to Kim Trusty for her insight and wise counsel. Thank you to Ally Sheedy for being a lifeline. So much love to the writers and artists whose advice I have come to rely on these last few years, including Cory Silverberg, Nidhi Chanani, Justin Hall, Minnie Pham, Michael V. Smith, Abi Slone, and Rainbow Rowell. All these people have taken at least one phone call and talked me down off at least one cliff.
Thank you to my therapists.
Thank you to my mom and dad, who made it possible for me to be this person, and then made it possible for me to be a writer by paying my rent for many many years.
Thank you to Heather Gold, my heart and home, the most amazing, funny, talented, and inspired person, the person who makes me want to be better and better, who helps me face the hard things, a process that has undoubtedly affected these pages.
This is a book about the death of a gay teen, a subject I in no way take lightly. This is also a book about survival and fighting for truth. For the LGBTQIA+ teens out there who have fought for their truths and their lives, really, this book is for you. If you can, and I hope you can, take your pain, turn it into art, live to tell the tale.
The Trevor Project is the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people. For support text START to 678-678, phone 1-866-488-7386, or go to thetrevorproject.org.