Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses substance misuse disorder, drink-spiking, and assault.

The novel opens at Halle Jacobs’s house in Los Angeles, California, where she’s starting her junior year at the University of California, Maple Hills. After Halle finishes making breakfast, her boyfriend and childhood friend Will Ellington says he wants to break up. Halle feels nothing and agrees that they should go back to just being friends. Will realizes Halle isn’t in love with him and gets upset.

Halle and Will have been friends since Halle’s mom married her stepdad, Paul Scott, and her family moved from New York to Arizona. Will lived next door and their parents became friends. Everyone expected Halle and Will to get together because Will was Halle’s only friend. Their parents were thrilled when they started dating, even though Halle gave up college in New York to attend Maple Hills to be closer to Will. Will is in school for hockey in San Diego. However, Halle never felt the thrill she expected to feel with Will. Over time, he grew frustrated that she wouldn’t have sex with him.

Will interrupts Halle’s thoughts. He insists he doesn’t want “to be the bad guy” but is tired of waiting for Halle to have sex and fall in love with him (5).