Blair

Blair was Clay's girlfriend before he left for college. She picks him up from the airport in the opening of the novel, and they both spend most of the story unsure if they are still involved or not. They do sleep together a couple of times. In a scene near the end, Clay waits at a restaurant where he meets Blair, and she attempts to discuss their relationship; he is uncommunicative. The night before he leaves to go back to college, Blair calls him and asks him not to go.

Clay

Clay is the narrator and protagonist of the story. He is eighteen years of age, and has arrived home in Los Angeles for Christmas vacation after his first semester of college on the East Coast. Once home, he immediately falls back into his wide social circle; he begins to go from party to party, taking drugs, engaging...