Click to Subscribe

Chapter 1

Half of the guys in my grade get girls with one flash of a smile. The other 49.999 percent either get straight A’s, college scholarships, or a million dollars from their so-rich-they-need-a-personal-chef-even-though-they-always-eat-out parents. And me? I get a camera and a broken heart.

Sunlight warms my back as I push open the front door and reach for my computer. Red and yellow leaves litter the entire front yard, and the poignant smell of autumn is everywhere. I breathe it in, smiling to myself. Everyone knows this is the best season. I mean, winter is all about snow and it’s common knowledge that snow stops being cute after the third time shoveling out the driveway. Spring is okay, although I’m mostly in it for the Girl Scout Cookies, and summer is too much fighting over which half-naked girl to flirt with next to be even halfway enjoyable. But autumn is cool, rich, and lively. Autumn is dancing in the leaves with that one person you can’t go without. Autumn is running and jumping in the wind. Autumn is smiling, kissing, loving.

Autumn is happy.

Well, at least it’s supposed to be.

Ever since Mom died, though, that whole “happy” thing has been more of a struggle for me than anything else in the world.

With another breath, I log into my computer, click over to my vlog page, and scroll through the fifty-something new comments on my latest video. Most are complimentary, despite the one troll who seems to think my incredibly gorgeous face (my words) is “fat.” Honestly, I’m not entirely sure how a face can be fat, but okay.

After a quick skim, I already know none of the comments is the one I’m looking for, though.

I started my vlog two and a half years ago as a high school freshman with too much free time and not enough friends to spend it with. Mom used to call it my “imaginary friend” or my “replacement friend,” but if that’s true, this vlog is one badass imaginary friend. Not too many imaginary friends come with over one-hundred-thousand subscribers.

I check my watch—2:01. She should be commenting by now.

She. Harper. The girl who comments every day at exactly 2:02 in the afternoon, and who is one of the few bright spots left in my life. I don’t know what she looks like or anything about her, really, aside from our occasional deep philosophical messaging on why pizza tastes so delicious and the fact that she says she lives in the same state as I do. But as stupid as it sounds, I can’t stop thinking about her. Can’t stop picturing what she looks like, how she smiles, talks, laughs, or even how her lips taste in the moonlight. (I just hope like hell she isn’t actually a fifty-year-old man pretending to be a sixteen-year-old girl because talk about awkward.) Sometimes I even wonder what it would be like to see her every day, to have her sit next to me and make fun of me for my taste in cupcakes (pink frosting for the win), to just laugh and talk with her until the world melts away.

I refresh the page and check the time again. 2:02. Where is her comment?

It doesn’t come until a few seconds later. As a response to my video about love notes in class, “HarperLikesPizza,” whose profile is complete with an avatar of a cow riding a bicycle while simultaneously eating pizza, wrote, “I got a love note once during Spanish class in seventh grade. I’m pretty sure it said I was hotter than a frozen potato.”

I smile to myself. Together, Harper and I are the dorkiest people in existence, and I can’t help but love it. It doesn’t even matter that her comments are so short. Every interaction with her, no matter how small or pointless, is worth its weight in gold. She could probably lecture me on how a refrigerator works and it still would be awesome.

That’s just how she is, though: awesome. Perfect. Mine.

I scroll the mouse across the page and click over to message her. A few months back, when our friendship really started to grow and we needed a place to talk outside of comments and emails, Harper and I made this chatroom for each other. Only we have access to it, and it’s basically our own little corner of the internet to talk about the history of the tomatoes and not care about the stupidity of it, because we’re talking with each other. Sometimes, when I’m bored, I even go back to the chat, reread our conversations, and catch myself smiling at it.

Harper always makes me smile.

Nice, I type. Being hotter than a frozen potato is pretttty impressive. You deserve some sort of award.

I know, right?

Plus, it’s one hot frozen potato.

So hot it practically burnt the freaking kid’s hand, I bet.

Well, it’s no wonder with that super sexy new avatar of yours, I type, because I’m smiling just looking at it. Something about a pizza-eating-cow-biker is just so… her. I mean, I don’t know what she looks like or who she is, but somehow, I still feel like I know her, like we’re longtime friends and I don’t even realize it. And whoever she is, wherever she is, I can’t shake off this feeling that she is the one for me.

Yeah. I know. Falling in love with a girl over the internet. Welcome to my effed-up life. (My poor therapist.)

Hey, what can I say? she writes. My avatar brings all the boys to the yard.

I stifle a laugh. Oh my god. She is perfect.

Harper commented for the first time on my vlog almost four months ago, and for every week after that, she’s kept commenting. Back then, I only liked her platonically. I thought she was just a funny girl on the internet who I enjoyed talking to. Nothing more, nothing less. But slowly, as months passed, I realized I cared about her—like, for real. And at first, that scared the hell out of me.

I bet it’s the cow, I say. Major turn-on if you ask me.

I knoooow! So what’s up with you anyway?

Nothing. Just way too much homework.

SAME!

#awkwardhighschoolsingleprobs

Truth. We’re practically oppressed as a species.

We should make a club.

I think we already have. Exclusive. Only two people allowed. Just us. One hot potato and one… socially inept video blogger.

I hate you, I type.

I know.

No you don’t.

Oh, Sam Green, believe me, I do.

Harper calls me “Sam Green” because that’s my vlogging pseudonym, and I still haven’t had the guts to tell her my real name. I try to keep my vlog as separate as possible from my real life. My vlog is my happy place; my real life… isn’t.

Whatever, I type. I’m fabulous.

You sound like a total diva.

Probably because I am.

Oh yeah? What’s your most popular album and how come I’ve never heard of it?

My album is called “Love Letters To Myself” and you have never heard of it because you were raised poorly and have poor taste in music.

Creative title. And the album cover? Is it a picture of you tossing your hair in the wind?

Obviously. You doubt me?

Of course not.

Sitting on the porch, a slight breeze ruffles my blond hair, and several birds chirp overhead. I glance out at my tightly-packed neighborhood, which is lined with five small houses with even smaller yards per street, and catch myself smiling. When I talk to Harper, all I want is for her to just keep going, for me to keep talking to her, for her to write away the world for me. To make it just us, just me and her.

I’m not sure how one goes about falling in love with a girl over the internet, but I guess I did it pretty freaking easily. One second I thought she was funny and kind of cool and the next I was thinking so much more. I have no idea why I’m so sure about loving Harper, but I just… am. Sure, I could be overestimating this whole thing, but by the deep longing I feel for her every time I’m not back here, talking to her, and by the way I just wish she were closer and closer to me, I don’t think so.

Hey, Harper? I type after a while.

Yeah?

Your avatar is sure as hell bringing this boy to the yard.