From the New York Times bestselling author of the Dear Martin series comes a spin-off novel written in prose and letters-in-verse about a thirteen-year-old girl. As she navigates cancer, family challenges, and newfound friendship during her initial chemo treatment, she discovers that hope can bloom in the most unexpected places. “Absolutely incredible—I read it in one sitting and finished in tears. Stone shows so much care and nuance here. Dasia will stay with me forever.” —Andrea Beatriz Arango, author of Newbery Honor book Iveliz Explains it All “Unflinching, fearless, and strikingly original.” —Soman Chainani, author of the bestselling School for Good and Evil series and Young World After nineteen days of “induction chemotherapy,” Dasia Monae Riley knows no one else should be in her hospital room . . . But there she is: Jameson “Jimmy” Jeffs. Another cancer patient who’s seemingly everything Dasia is not: rich, well cared for, and a smidge childish (in Dasia’s opinion). However, Dasia soon discovers that their commonalities go beyond a random, incurable disease . . . like older brothers who are gone, baby brothers who need them, and struggles with friends at school. As Dasia and Jimmy chat, Dasia’s memories unfold in the unsent “letters” (read: poems) Dasia wrote to her incarcerated older brother. And over the course of one life-changing night, two girls who are at their lowest fight to keep each other uplifted. When you hit rock bottom, what does it take to survive and allow yourself to hope again? In a spin-off to the Dear Martin series, New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone delivers a heart-wrenching story of resilience, connection, and the fight to stay alive when battling illness and bearing the weight of difficult circumstances. ★ " A heartrending ode to the pain and relief of finding the words." — Kirkus Reviews , starred review Nic Stone is the author of many novels, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Dear Martin , its New York Times bestselling sequel Dear Justyce , and the final national bestselling installment Dear Manny , a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection and a CBC Kids Top Ten Favorite in the 9th–12th grade category. She also penned the young adult titles Odd One Out , an NPR Best Book and an ALA Rainbow Book Top Ten; Jackpot , the YALSA Quick Pick selection that takes a searing look at economic inequality; and Chaos Theory , a Southern Book Prize finalist and a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection. Her middle-grade novels include Clean Getaway , a New York Times bestseller, and Fast Pitch , a YALSA Quick Pick selection. Nic lives in Atlanta and will continue to write the books she feels are missing. ONE July 7, 9:12 p.m. Dasia always stares at the bag on the IV pole. The first time she saw one, she’d been in and out of consciousness with a fever so high, it felt like her body was cooking itself. She knew there had been a 911 call and two strangers wearing blue uniforms in her room. Mama crying, and Gabriel trying to console Mama (which was confusing because Gabe’s only eleven, so the whole thing seemed backward). A bunch of loud noises— thumps and bumps and the clang of metal on metal as the rolling bed Dasia was on slid into the ambulance. It was her first time inside one of those. She remembers the paramedics: A brown-skinned-but-not-Black man with straight, shiny hair the color of ink shot from a squid’s butt (she’d seen it on a documentary). And a pale-skinned lady with fire-colored hair in a thick braid and so many freckles, it looked like God had decided she didn’t need to be colored all the way in. She was very pretty, the freckly lady. And Dasia wanted to tell her. But getting any of her muscles to move, jaw and tongue included, felt impossible. She remembers the sharp pain in the back of her hand. The sound of tape being unstuck from its roll and ripped. A little device clamped at the tip of her index finger. And then there was the bag. Rectangular along the edge but bulging at the center with a liquid that looked like water but couldn’t have been if they were sending it into her veins. Blood and water didn’t mix good. She’d learned that in her Probe Science class, which was supposedly for the gifted . She let her eyes run down the tube hanging from the fluid-filled sack. And she thought, What the heck is that, and where’s it going? “It’s a saline solution, sweetheart.” (Turned out the freckle lady had a voice that felt like Dasia’s favorite velvet blanket against her eardrums . . . also, had Dasia asked that out loud?) “You’re severely dehydrated. It’s dripping fluid straight into your bloodstream and will hopefully help bring your fever—” But Dasia had blacked out again and didn’t hear the rest. Every time she closed her eyes over the following couple of weeks, she would see that bag. It scared her at first. She even had a dream one night that the bag was chasing her . . . b
