From Chapter 1

-- Mew, "156"

The day I broke up with my boyfriend Evan was the day he wrote the song. You know, the song. I'm sure you've heard it. Maybe you danced to it at prom or sang it in your car on a Friday night when you were driving and feeling like you must be inhuman to be this happy, the windows down and nothing but air around you. Your mom has probably hummed it while cleaning the dryer's lint trap, and your grandpa has most likely whistled a couple bars. If he's the whistling type.

According to the poll on the front page of USA Today, sixty-three percent of Americans blame me for the breakup, so let me clear the air right now: they're right. Sixty-three percent of Americans are no fools when it comes to knowing about my love life, which is really creepy and isn't helping me sleep well. But it's true: I broke up with Evan, and eight hours later, he had a song in his head and a guitar in his hand and it snowballed from there.

It took me forever to decide whether or not to break up with him, I can tell you that. It wasn't like I just woke up one morning and was like, "Hey, let's liven things up!" Please. I have enough on my plate without all this. I'm a junior, for God's sakes! It's not like I have to take the SATs this year or anything. But I had been thinking about it -- breaking up -- for a while.

"Make a list," Victoria had said. She's big on lists and has a folder full of them. They have titles like "Six Colors to Dye My Hair Before I Shrivel Up and Die" and "Five People to Banish From the Face of the Earth" (Evan, according to her, is now número uno). So the day I did it, I sat at Victoria's kitchen table and wrote down the reasons why I should stay with Evan.

1. He's a singer/songwriter with a band and actual talent.

2. He has excellent oral hygiene (that one is so important, I can't even tell you. I can't imagine ever kissing a non-flosser. So gross.).

3. He says he's going to write a song about me.

And then I wrote the cons:

1. He smokes too much pot.

2. He's always "practicing" or "gigging" with his band, the Do-Gooders, especially when I need him.

3. He says "gigging."

4. He's mellow about everything. Everything.

5. He makes me be the one to get condoms from the school nurse's office.

6. He sucks his teeth after he eats, which makes horrible squeaking sounds, like a mouse dying.

And so on. I wrote so many cons that I needed a new piece of paper, and by the time Victoria saw me start a fresh page, she took it away and shook her head. "Audrey," she told me, "save a tree."

***

"Well, can we still be . . . I don't know, friends? Or something lame like that?" Evan had been cross-legged on his bed when I broke up with him. I was on the opposite side of the room in his desk chair, sitting backwards. We were both crying, but he was the only one who needed tissues. Still, we passed the box back and forth.