Tell Me Three Things

Tell Me Three Things Plot Summary

Introduction

Seven hundred and thirty-three days after her mother died, Jessie Holmes receives an anonymous email that will change everything. The sender calls himself Somebody Nobody, and he claims to know her—to see her in ways that no one else at her new Los Angeles private school does. Still reeling from her father's sudden remarriage and their move from Chicago, Jessie finds herself caught between two worlds: the sterile perfection of her stepfamily's mansion and the brutal social hierarchy of Wood Valley High School, where designer handbags matter more than heart. But behind a screen, in the safety of digital anonymity, Jessie discovers something she thought she'd lost forever—the ability to be truly known. As messages flow between her and her mysterious correspondent, she begins to realize that sometimes the most honest conversations happen when you can't see the other person's face. The question that haunts her nights isn't just who Somebody Nobody really is, but whether their connection can survive the harsh light of reality.

Chapter 1: Uprooted: A New Life in Los Angeles

The morning Jessie Holmes walked into Wood Valley High School, she was already running on borrowed time. Her father's whirlwind marriage to Rachel Scott—a film marketing executive with a penchant for organic everything and a house that belonged in Architectural Digest—had uprooted her from the familiar chaos of Chicago and deposited her in the sun-bleached perfection of Los Angeles. Everything here felt wrong, from the relentless sunshine to the way her new stepbrother Theo pretended she didn't exist. Wood Valley High was a monument to privilege, where teenagers drove BMWs and discussed their summer internships at Google like they were comparing lunch choices. Jessie's own summer working at Smoothie King felt pathetic by comparison, especially when she accidentally crashed the wrong homeroom and had to endure the pitying stares of students who'd spent their break building schools in Tanzania or backpacking through India with their parents' credit cards. The house on the hill felt more like a museum than a home. Rachel had decorated everything in white—white walls, white furniture, white silence that echoed with the absence of Jessie's mother's laughter. Her new room was a guest suite complete with monogrammed soaps she was afraid to touch and abstract art that looked like a child's finger painting. The only familiar thing was a small photo of her and her mom, arms wrapped around each other, both of them grinning at a world that still made sense. At lunch, Jessie discovered the cruel mathematics of teenage social dynamics. Every table had its tribe, every corner its hierarchy. She settled on a lonely bench outside the cafeteria, watching through windows as her classmates performed their daily rituals of belonging. Her phone buzzed constantly with messages from Scarlett, her best friend back home, but even those felt like echoes from a life that was rapidly becoming someone else's memory. The worst part wasn't the isolation—it was the way grief had followed her across the country like a faithful dog. Los Angeles couldn't cure the hollow ache where her mother used to be, couldn't fill the silence where family dinners and bedtime stories once lived. If anything, the perfect weather and Instagram-ready landscape made her loss feel more pronounced, like a smudge on an otherwise flawless photograph.

Chapter 2: Anonymous Connection: The Mysterious SN

The email arrived without warning, sliding into Jessie's inbox like a message in a bottle washing up on a digital shore. The sender called himself Somebody Nobody, and his words carried a familiarity that should have been impossible from a complete stranger. He'd been watching her, he claimed—not in a creepy way, but with the curiosity of someone who recognized a kindred spirit trapped in Wood Valley's social wilderness. His messages came in bursts of lowercase letters and unexpected wisdom, offering insider intelligence about the school's unspoken rules and hidden dangers. Don't eat the veggie burgers, he warned with dark humor, and stay away from Mr. Shackleman during gym class. But beyond the practical advice lay something deeper—a voice that seemed to understand the weight she carried, the way grief could make you feel invisible even in a crowded room. Their correspondence developed its own rhythm, like learning a new language built from shared observations and tentative confessions. SN wrote about his mother's struggles with prescription drugs, about losing someone close to him, about the way insomnia could make the world feel like a stage set waiting for actors who would never come. Jessie found herself typing back with an honesty that felt dangerous and necessary, admitting fears and frustrations she'd never spoken aloud. The anonymity created a strange intimacy. Behind her screen, Jessie could be the version of herself she'd always wanted to be—quick with comebacks, unafraid of vulnerability, able to flirt without blushing. Their conversations stretched late into the night, filled with games and observations and the kind of deep connection that teenagers crave but rarely find. He began each day by asking for three things from her life, and she found herself cataloguing moments just to share them with him. But questions nagged at her. Who was this person who seemed to know her schedule, her habits, her heartbreak? The mystery became its own addiction, more compelling than any face-to-face conversation she'd had since arriving in California. In a world where everything felt artificial and performative, Somebody Nobody offered something Wood Valley seemed incapable of providing—the radical gift of being truly seen.

Chapter 3: Finding Allies: Navigating Wood Valley's Social Hierarchy

Salvation came in the form of Adrianna Sanchez, a sharp-eyed girl with oversized glasses and a wit that cut through Wood Valley's pretensions like a scalpel through silk. Dri, as she preferred to be called, had been watching Jessie too—not with SN's mysterious omniscience, but with the practical eye of someone who recognized a fellow outsider. Their friendship bloomed over shared eye-rolls at their classmates' designer angst and mutual appreciation for books that didn't come with their own Instagram accounts. Agnes completed their unlikely trio, a tiny redhead with the mouth of a sailor and the observation skills of a documentary filmmaker. Together, they formed Wood Valley's most necessary alliance—the smart girls who refused to apologize for their intelligence, who could decode the school's social dynamics without necessarily wanting to climb them. At lunch, they dissected their classmates' relationships with the precision of anthropologists studying a particularly volatile tribe. But even friendship came with complications at Wood Valley. Dri harbored an epic crush on Liam Sandler, the shaggy-haired senior who fronted the school's most celebrated band, Orgasmville. Liam's musical talent was matched only by his complete obliviousness to Dri's existence, despite her elaborate schemes to cross his path. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Gem made it her personal mission to torture Jessie with a creativity that would have been impressive if it weren't so vicious. The attacks started small—mocked clothing choices, snide comments about Jessie's laptop stickers, deliberate shoulder checks in the hallway. But Gem's cruelty had a surgical precision that suggested years of practice. She knew exactly how to make someone feel small without crossing any lines that would get her in trouble, especially since her father's donations to the school had earned her a certain immunity from consequences. Through it all, SN remained Jessie's constant companion, offering comfort and counsel through their digital conversations. He knew about her struggles with Gem, about her growing friendship with Dri, about the way Wood Valley's social politics felt like learning to navigate a minefield while blindfolded. His messages became her lifeline, proof that somewhere in this sterile paradise, someone understood exactly who she was and what she was fighting for.

Chapter 4: Virtual vs. Reality: Falling for Ethan While Messaging SN

English class brought its own complications in the form of Ethan Marks, a boy who wore exhaustion like armor and read poetry with the intensity of someone searching for salvation in verse. When Mrs. Pollack assigned partners for their semester-long project on T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," Ethan chose Jessie with a casual nod that sent her heart into dangerous territory. He was beautiful in the way that broken things sometimes are—dark hair falling over blue eyes that held depths she wanted to explore. But Ethan was also maddeningly inconsistent. In private moments, studying at Starbucks or walking across campus, he could be warm and funny and surprisingly vulnerable. He'd recite entire passages from memory, buy her coffee without being asked, and talk about poetry like it was a secret language they were learning together. Then, surrounded by other students, he would retreat behind walls of indifference, offering nothing more than polite acknowledgment of her existence. The contrast with SN couldn't have been starker. While Ethan remained an enigma who revealed himself in careful doses, her digital correspondent offered unlimited access to his thoughts and feelings. SN wrote about sleepless nights and family trauma, about the way grief could rewire your brain until nothing felt quite real anymore. He understood her mother's absence in ways that felt almost supernatural, knew exactly what to say when the weight of loss threatened to crush her entirely. Jessie found herself living in two realities—the uncertain push and pull of her attraction to Ethan, and the steady comfort of her connection with SN. Both relationships fed different hungers, offered different kinds of intimacy. With Ethan, every conversation was a puzzle to be solved, every smile a small victory. With SN, communication flowed like water, natural and necessary and endlessly renewable. The irony wasn't lost on her that she was falling for two boys simultaneously—one whose face she saw every day but whose thoughts remained largely mysterious, and another whose mind she knew intimately but whose identity remained hidden behind a screen name and careful anonymity. Both connections felt real, both offered something she desperately needed, and both seemed equally impossible to fully grasp.

Chapter 5: Going Home: Chicago and the Shifting Definition of Belonging

The plane ticket arrived like an unexpected gift, Rachel's peace offering wrapped in the promise of a long weekend in Chicago. But returning home revealed truths that Jessie wasn't prepared to face. Scarlett, her once-inseparable best friend, had built a new life in her absence—complete with a boyfriend, new friends, and rhythms that no longer included space for Jessie's particular brand of grief and displacement. The basement that had once felt like their private kingdom now belonged to different people. Adam Kravitz, Jessie's former neighbor with the unfortunate kissing technique, had transformed into someone worthy of Scarlett's affection. Their easy intimacy filled spaces where Jessie and Scarlett's friendship used to live, making her feel like a tourist in her own past. Even Deena, a girl they'd once mocked together, had somehow earned a place at Scarlett's table. Over pizza at DeLucci's, their old sanctuary, cracks in their relationship became impossible to ignore. Scarlett accused Jessie of self-absorption, of treating her like an emotional dumping ground rather than a friend with her own struggles. The criticism stung because it was largely true—Jessie had been so focused on her own displacement that she'd failed to consider what her leaving had cost the people she left behind. But the weekend also offered unexpected gifts. Scarlett was navigating her own firsts—first real boyfriend, first serious relationship, first experience with the kind of physical intimacy that transforms friendship dynamics. Her vulnerability reminded Jessie that growing up was hard for everyone, even people who stayed in the same place. They found their way back to each other through honesty, admitting their respective failures and fears. The revelation that home wasn't a place but a feeling hit Jessie hardest on her last night. Chicago would always be where her mother lived in memory, but it was no longer where her future waited. Wood Valley, for all its flaws and challenges, had become the place where she was building something new—friendships that mattered, work that fulfilled her, and maybe, if she was brave enough to reach for it, love that could survive the transition from pixels to real life.

Chapter 6: Family Reconciliation: Finding Peace in a Blended Household

The confrontation with her father had been brewing for weeks, a storm system of resentment and misunderstanding that finally broke in the familiar refuge of Book Out Below! Among the stacks of self-help books and romance novels, Bill Holmes finally found the words to apologize for the ways he'd failed his daughter in their shared grief. He offered to move them back to Chicago if that's what she wanted, but Jessie surprised them both by choosing to stay. The conversation unlocked something in their relationship, allowing them to acknowledge what they'd lost and what they were trying to build. Her father admitted his own struggles with Rachel's world, his discomfort at fancy restaurants and work dinners where he felt like an imposter in his own marriage. Jessie began to understand that adults didn't have all the answers, that sometimes they were just trying to survive their mistakes and hoping for the best. Rachel, too, revealed depths that Jessie hadn't expected. The glossy perfection of her public persona hid its own grief—a widow trying to blend two broken families into something whole, a mother watching her son reject the very stability she was trying to create. Her gesture of buying Jessie's plane ticket had been about more than kindness; it was an acknowledgment that love couldn't be forced, only offered and hoped for. Even Theo emerged as an unlikely ally, his theatrical exterior masking genuine loyalty and surprising wisdom. His defense of Jessie against Gem's cruelty revealed a protective instinct she hadn't known existed, while his casual acceptance of their blended family's complications offered a model for how to navigate their new normal. Together, they began to build something that wasn't quite traditional family but was undeniably theirs. The house on the hill started to feel less like a museum and more like a work in progress. Pictures appeared on previously sterile walls, voices filled spaces that had been reserved for silence, and meals became opportunities for connection rather than performance. It wasn't the family Jessie had lost, but it was family nonetheless—messy and imperfect and real in ways that mattered more than she'd expected.

Chapter 7: The Big Reveal: When Digital and Physical Worlds Collide

The IHOP on Ventura Boulevard became the stage for the most important revelation of Jessie's junior year. She arrived early, nerves crackling like electricity, expecting to finally meet Somebody Nobody face to face. But when Liam Sandler appeared first, asking her out with the confidence of someone accustomed to yes as an answer, her carefully constructed theories about SN's identity crumbled like paper in rain. For a moment, she tried to make peace with disappointment. Liam was handsome, talented, coveted by the most beautiful girl in school. If he was SN, if their digital connection had somehow translated into his feelings for her, shouldn't she be grateful? But before she could form an answer, Ethan appeared—tired, nervous, holding his phone like a lifeline. The revelation that followed rewrote months of assumptions. Ethan was Somebody Nobody, the mysterious correspondent who'd guided her through Wood Valley's social wilderness and shared her late-night conversations about grief and hope and the particular loneliness of being sixteen. The boy she'd been crushing on and the voice she'd been falling for were the same person, separated only by the artificial distance of digital communication. Everything clicked into place—his knowledge of her schedule, his understanding of her struggles, his ability to appear just when she needed guidance most. Ethan had been watching her not with stalker intensity but with the careful attention of someone who recognized a kindred spirit. His insomnia, his family's struggles with addiction, his brother's death from a heroin overdose—all of it had been shared through their messages, creating an intimacy that transcended physical presence. When he finally reached across the booth to tuck her hair behind her ear—the gesture he'd written about wanting to make—and kissed her among the sticky tables and smiley-face pancakes, Jessie understood something fundamental about love. It wasn't about perfect moments or perfect people. It was about finding someone who saw you completely and chose to stay, someone who could make IHOP feel like the most romantic place on earth simply by being themselves, fully and honestly, in your presence.

Summary

In the fluorescent glow of that anonymous chain restaurant, surrounded by the detritus of their marathon conversation, Jessie Holmes discovered that home had never been a place at all. It was this—the feeling of being known by someone who chose to know her, the miracle of finding love in the aftermath of loss. Ethan's revelation didn't just solve the mystery of Somebody Nobody; it proved that the most important connections often happen in the spaces between what we show the world and who we really are. The girl who had counted days since her mother's death like a rosary of grief learned to count forward instead—toward PSATs and prom, college applications and all the ordinary milestones that suddenly felt possible again. Wood Valley High would never be Chicago, Rachel would never replace the mother she'd lost, and grief would always be her unwelcome companion. But she'd also found something unexpected in the California sun: the courage to let people see her truly, and the wisdom to recognize love when it appeared in her inbox, one message at a time. Sometimes the most honest conversations really do happen when you can't see the other person's face—until the moment when you can, and discover they're even more beautiful than you imagined.

About Author

Loading

Julie Buxbaum

Buxbaum navigates the intricacies of human emotion by addressing themes of grief, loss, and identity, often weaving humor into her narratives to tackle challenging subjects. Her writing journey began with adult fiction, as seen in her critically acclaimed novels "The Opposite of Love" and "After You," which delve into emotional complexity and personal growth. Her transition to young adult fiction marked a pivotal moment in her career, with "Tell Me Three Things" becoming a New York Times bestseller and showcasing her ability to create relatable, emotionally nuanced characters.\n\nHer literary style blends comedy with tragedy, reflecting her desire to make sense of the world through writing. This approach is evident in subsequent young adult books like "What to Say Next" and "Admission," where she explores identity and familial relationships. Meanwhile, her foray into middle grade fiction with "The Area 51 Files" demonstrates her versatility and commitment to engaging a younger audience with stories of wonder and discovery.\n\nReaders benefit from Buxbaum's work as it provides a lens through which to explore personal challenges and emotional growth. Her books resonate with those seeking stories that are both specific in their details yet universal in their themes. Moreover, her ability to capture the intricacies of personal experiences ensures that her narratives remain compelling across different age groups and cultural contexts.

Read more