Christopher Harte

Christopher Harte is a seventeen-year-old boy when the book opens. Through the course of the novel, however, the reader gets to see Christopher at different phases of his life. Chris lives with his parents in a small town in New Hampshire. Next door, lives another family, his mother's best friend, and their daughter, only three months younger than Chris. Chris and Emily grow up together, best friends, never apart. When one falls, the other bleeds. Together they grow and mature, eventually blossoming into mature teens, who find intimacy with each other the same way they discovered all else about life.

Chris's parents had always hoped the two kids would one day fall in love and marry, uniting these two families legally as well as emotionally. When, at thirteen, the children seem to fall in love, the parents are thrilled. Chris, too, is happy with this change in...