Years from now I'll look back and remember today as the day I met him. I'll look back and remember the exact moment my life began to include him.. I will remember it forever.

I wore a green tie-dyed T-shirt and jeans. My best friend, Bree Warren, arrived in a peasant shirt and a long black skirt down to her violet toenails, and of course she looked beautiful and sophisticated.

"Hey, junior," she greeted me with a hug, even though I'd seen her the day before.

"See you in AP calc," I told Janice Yutoh, and met Bree halfway down the front steps. "Hey," I said back. "It's hot. It's supposed to be crisp on the first day of school." It wasn't even eight-thirty, but the early September sun was burning whitely, and the air felt muggy and still. Despite the weather I felt excited, expectant: A whole new year was starting, and we were finally upperclassmen.

"Maybe in the Yukon territory," Bree suggested. "You look great."

"Thanks," I said, appreciating her diplomacy. "You too."

Bree looks like a model. She's tall, five-nine, and has a figure most girls would starve themselves for, except Bree eats everything and think dieting is for lemmings. She has milky dark hair that she usually gets styled in Manhattan, so it falls in perfectly tousled waves to the base of her neck. Wherever we go, people turn their heads to look at her.

The thing about Bree is that she knows she's gorgeous, and she enjoys it. She doesn't shrug off compliments, or complain about her looks, or pretend she doesn't know what people are talking about. But she isn't exactly conceited, either. She just accepts what she looks like and thinks it's cool.