Summary

In the prologue, Elsie Hannaway feels humiliated to be cramped in a bathroom stall with Jack Smith: “the arrogant older brother of the guy [she has] been pretending to date for the past six months” (10). Chapter 1 takes place twenty-four hours earlier. Elsie recalls how she dressed up as the duality of light for Halloween in middle school. Elsie is obsessed with science and with the idea of having multiple personas. She works as a theoretical physicist and as a fake girlfriend. Her former friend, J.J., got her working for a fake girlfriend agency called Faux. Elsie’s current fake boyfriend is Greg, who brings her to his grandmother’s birthday party. Elsie enjoys Greg’s kindness. She tells his family she works as a librarian.

At the party, Elsie runs into Jack in the kitchen. He catches her pouring out her glass of...