Part One: Chapters 1 - 5 Summary

The novel opens with LaVaughn remembering a picture she drew as a little kid of a stick figure with a huge circle head and arms wide open like a hug. That's all the picture was. It consisted of a stick figure smiling because that's all life was and it showed her happiness. Now that she's older however, LaVaughn realizes that's not life at all. Life is complicated, messy, and mysterious.

Being fifteen years old, there are three ways that LaVaughn knows to stay out of trouble or how to not get pregnant. First, be mean to all boys all the time so that they will stay away from you. She knows one girl who used to be like this, but she got raped and now she's a person you pity and so this plan doesn't work for...