Tell Me Three Things

Somebody Nobody (SN) is the pseudonym a 16-year-old boy at Wood Valley High School gives himself when he emails Jessie on the first day of school, offering to be her “virtual spirit guide” (4). He discloses to Jessie that his sister died, and the fact that he is a member of the “dead family club” allows Jessie to find a deeper connection with him than she can with other friends (236). They soon begin talking throughout the day, and late into the night, and the vulnerability with which they share the secrets of their lives leads Jessie to consider him her “phantom best friend” (330). Their messages are occasionally flirtatious, suggestive, and playful, written with a confidence that neither SN nor Jessie feel they can emit in person. He is reluctant to give up his anonymity, and the mystery and suspense of SN’s true identity drive the plot; but when SN acknowledges that his relationship with Jessie is “more important than anything else” (267), at the risk of losing her, he summons the courage to face her in person. Jessie is relieved and ecstatic to find out SN is Ethan, the person she was desperately hoping it would be.

Jessie notices Ethan on the first day of school, looking mean, sad, and “chronically exhausted” (17). When they pair up for an English project on T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” Jessie sees firsthand how bookish and intelligent he is, even though he is “dazed and withdrawn” most of the time (223). Almost immediately, Jessie finds herself mesmerized by his dark hair, blue eyes, and rarely seen “goofy” smile, frequently chastising herself for developing an unhealthy “obsession” with him.

When she finds out his older brother, Xander, died of a heroin overdose, she finally recognizes the grief he carries within himself as parallel to her own. Despite being labeled as “damaged,” Jessie finds comfort in their shared experiences: feeling isolated, navigating their loss, escaping into books, and ultimately coming to terms with who they are after losing a family member, even though everyone “wonders why [they] can't just go back to being how [they] used to be” (290). In various moments, they provide each other with the necessary reminder that their identity and self cannot be determined by anyone else.

Before Ethan reveals himself as SN, Jessie begins to reconsider the importance of her online relationship with SN, as her relationship with Ethan is more than “just carefully written words on a screen” (291). Jessie does not have to choose between them and does not have to give up the intimate connection she shares with SN nor the immediacy she experiences with Ethan. SN/Ethan, despite his own invisibility, “really sees” Jessie from the very beginning, which she desperately needed upon her arrival to LA. Over the course of two months, both SN and Ethan become indispensable parts of Jessie’s new life and help her reach a place where she finally, after two years, wants to be.

Theo is Jessie's flamboyant, intelligent, theatrical stepbrother, who is also a junior at Wood Valley. He spends the first few weeks of the semester actively ignoring Jessie, deliberately expressing his resentment towards the Holmes' sudden appearance into his life. With time, however, he begins to open up to Jessie, and she learns that though he is “a little much about muchness” (14), which was initially off-putting, “he approaches life with manic enthusiasm” (132), and she admires how unapologetically authentic he is. Jessie experiences how kind and gallant he can be, especially when he defends her against Gem, a turning point in which he demonstrates that “family comes first” (218). 

As they become closer, they begin to hold each other accountable and provide each other with perspective: Theo encourages Jessie to speak to her father, reminding her that the time they have with their parents is uncertain, and Jessie reminds Theo that, despite being gay and losing his dad, he lives an incredibly privileged life. Though they have vastly different personalities, Theo's character serves to parallel Jessie's experience: they are equally resentful of their new situations and are navigating the stress and pressures of high school in addition to the grief of losing the parent they were closest to. Despite their initial reluctance, Jessie and Theo begin to find solidarity in each other. 

Scarlett is Jessie's childhood best friend, who Jessie describes as her “five-foot-tall, half-Jewish, half-Korean bouncer” (19). Where Jessie is shy, anxious, and self-conscious, Scar is witty, “brash and unafraid of everyone” (59). Despite being halfway across the country after Jessie moves, Scarlett has a frequent virtual presence in the story, constantly texting Jessie reassurances as she struggles to adjust. Scarlett is the last tangible connection Jessie has to her old life in Chicago, which she clings to and relies on with such desperation that it almost becomes detrimental to their friendship. 

Expecting everything about Chicago and her relationship with Scarlett to have remained static for two months, Jessie is startled and disappointed by their initial reunion. When Jessie's mom died, Scarlett assumed the “full-time job of distracting [Jessie] from the pain” (277), a role she continued to play even after Jessie moved. During Jessie's visit, though, she quickly realizes that she was not the only one deeply affected by her move to LA, and that she was selfishly turning to Scarlett for ongoing support without offering any in return. 

Struggling with her feelings for Adam, which Jessie can empathize with given her crush on Ethan, the usually fearless Scarlett uncharacteristically turns to Jessie for advice. This role reversal helps Jessie see her own inner strength and wisdom, and she finally begins to believe Scar when she tells Jessie she is a “fighter” (278). Scarlett's friendship provides Jessie with the ongoing comfort of being known (especially as someone who knew her before her mother's death), while also forcing Jessie to reconcile her desire to return to the past with the need to move forward. 

Jessie first notices Dri in English class because she reminds her of the type of students she was friends with in Chicago. SN encourages Jessie to reach out to her, because despite her shyness, she is “cool and smart and secretly funny” (32). She quickly becomes Jessie's first true friend at Wood Valley (other than SN), a reassurance that Jessie's life is returning to some semblance of normal. Jessie finds that their personalities are similar, and Dri's fear of being “invisible” and unnoticed at school echo Jessie's own (192). Even Dri's extreme, unrequited crush on Liam mirrors the intense feelings Jessie develops for Ethan, and she can sympathize and find comfort in their parallel experiences.

When it becomes known that Liam might have feelings for Jessie, and that there is a chance he might be SN, Jessie is quick to prioritize her friendship with Dri over the possibility of dating Liam. This new friendship has become crucial to her adjustment to Wood Valley and is one of the “three things that add up to [her] life” in LA (245). Dri's friendship helps Jessie move forward, and with her new girlfriends, Jessie can “[take] off [her] top-secret grief backpack and [leave] it behind,” a sign that she is beginning to heal (155).