Angelina. (Original writing)

It is the summer of 1979 and David Platt, a recent graduate of a rural Colorado high school, has been devastated by the suicide of his closest friend, Gary. The suicide--unexpected, bizarre, and committed with what had seemed a wilful perversity--has shaken Dave's trust in their nearly lifelong friendship. In this portion of the novel, David, desperate to regain his innocence, begins to search for a portal back into his childhood, back to the era of magic boyhood summers when he and Gary had been bonded with a ritualized, almost obsessed, attachment. But in his search, David begins to realize that perhaps the true perversity lies in himself, and that Gary's act could have been a product of--or a warning against--David's own desires.