Ezra Faulkner

Ezra Faulkner is about to enter the seventh grade as the story opens. He lives in a gated subdivision in California just a few miles from Disneyland. Ezra believes that everyone has a “personal tragedy” and that the person's life begins only after that tragedy. For his best friend, Toby, that tragedy happened that summer when a boy is decapitated on a ride at Disneyland. Toby catches the head. Ezra soon drifts away from Toby, becoming an integral part of a group of students who are popular and athletic. He focuses on tennis and fully expects to be recruited to a respectable college after high school.

Ezra is dating a popular girl in high school and is constantly surrounded by people who consider themselves Ezra's friends. However, when he's seriously hurt in a car wreck, not one of those people stay with him until the ambulance arrives...