My name is Angelina Rossini. A little about me:

• I am sixteen years old.



• I live in Blodgett, Vermont. Population: 854.



• Most of my life''s been pretty normal for a twenty-first-century American teen.

THAT SAID:

• I''m in love with my best friend who, um, recently came out.



• I sometimes get the sense that my mother wishes I hadn''t been born.



• I maintain a low level of hostility with at least one of my classmates.

I could deal, though. Mainly because my dad was around, and he was my sun. Our sun, really: my mom''s, my stepsister''s, and mine. My dad kept us all in place, orbiting around him.

But then the sun, well...it went out. Click.

That was the end of Life As I Knew It -- and the beginning of something a lot different.