Page 1 of What I Like About You

ONE

The flowers are dead, I’m surrounded by orange, and a suitcase has been disemboweled in the search for a phone charger. Clothes are everywhere. I meaneverywhere. Like, you wouldn’t know that underneath the scattered piles of my wardrobe is a white carpet kind of everywhere. But I have motive.

The Most Important Email of My Life (so far) could poof into my inbox at any moment before five p.m. EDT and my phone is currently lifeless.

It’s waiting for me now, for all I know.

Subject: READ BETWEEN THE LIES Cover reveal: You are NOT worthy.

Subject: We gave it to EW. Who are you?

Subject: If you think THAT’S a lot of Instagram followers …

With the toss of one last cardigan, I reveal … nothing. The suitcase is empty.

I blink. My charger isn’t here. There is literally nowhere else it couldbe.

I know it’s not in my purse.

I check my purse for a third time anyway.

It’s not even like I can borrow one. Deciding to be an Android in an iPhone family? Literally the worst decision ever right now. I’ve been offline for three hours and thirty-three minutes and I can think of approximately three hundred thirty-three things that could have happened in that time. My phone died its tragic death in Philadelphia mid–inbox refresh on hour ten of the twelve-hour trek from Charlotte, North Carolina, to my newest temporary home: Middleton, AKA Middle-of-Nowhere, Connecticut.

With no charger in sight, the only connection I have to anything within the realm of normal is impossible to reach. I’m stuck instead with no internet, dead flowers, an entirely unrecognizable Gramps, and orange walls.

I hate orange. After red, my rainbow skips straight to yellow.

But Ichosethis orange. Shortly after we arrived, I stepped into Aunt Liz’s childhood 1970s nightmare room and claimed it as mine. I know I’m going to regret this in the morning. But right now? I need this room. It’s the only place that still feels like my grandparents’ house. Every other room is remodeled and modern, all glass tables and new paint and uncomfortable cream-colored furniture. No more garden. No more pictures. No more books.

Grams would be horrified.

“Halle.”

I look up. Ollie is at the door, waving my charger in his hand.

“No clue how it got into my stuff,” he says.

Me either. But it doesn’t matter. It’shere.

“You’re myhero.”

I grab my phone off the floor and hold my hands out, expecting Ollie to toss the cord to me. He doesn’t. Instead, my fifteen-year-old brother leans back against the doorframe, allowing his light brown hair to fall into his eyes.

“Mom is two seconds away from cry number three. Dad’s having an allergic reaction to Scout. And Gramps is ranting about the rise of fascism. He straight-up looked at me and said, ‘Do you know what fascism is?’ Like, anyone with a pulse right now knows what fascism is. I didn’t say that, obviously.”

I take a step toward him and place my hand on his arm.“Ollie.”

He exhales. “This is hard for me, too, okay? I need you out there.”

“I spiraled,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Everything looks so different,” Ollie says.

“I know.”

“Gramps and I have matchingNikes.”

“I know.”

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