Holder enrols in school the next day, and is in the same class as Sky and Breckin. The previous year, soon after his twin sister’s suicide, he had been sent to juvi for committing a hate crime: beating up a gay student. When Sky asks Six about Holder, she says that while she’s happy to learn finally that Sky is capable of experiencing lust (which she is, big time), Dean Holder is not boyfriend material. When on her evening run, she runs into him again, and learns his name is Holder, and he has a tattoo across his forearm that says ‘Hopeless’.

When he finds out her name, he seems disappointed about something, but lets he go. But despite her misgivings, she gives in because of his completely melting look of entreaty. That day, when she goes to the store, she meets the same guy from the track, who behaves very weird and stalkerish with her, insisting on knowing her full name and examining her id. During lunch she meets Breckin, who’s a Mormon and gay, and becomes Sky’s self proclaimed ‘very bestest friend ever in the whole wide world’. But Sky takes it pretty much in her stride. The first day turns out to be the worst day ever, with Six’s reputation leaking onto Sky, and everyone thinking she’s a slut. She spies a boy running on the tracks, but just when school is about to start, he leaves. On the first day, Sky goes to school early to get the lay of the land. But she’ll have to tough it out alone, since Six is leaving on a student exchange program to Italy. It is the day before Sky starts her senior year at the high school after years of being home schooled.

The story opens with Sky and Six ushering boys into their rooms for a make-out session that soon turns sour, with the boys turned out, and the girls pigging out on ice cream. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before.

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky Davis realizes after she meets Dean Holder. Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

Hopeless and losing hope