How It All Goes Down
Vera Dietz is a teenager with issues. As soon as the book opens up, we find out that her best friend (well, former-best-friend-turned-enemy) Charlie has died after allegedly setting the pet shop on fire. As time goes on, we get a sense of what's going on in Vera's life now, along with flashbacks that tell us more about her past with Charlie, as well as insights from her dad and from the dead kid (a.k.a. Charlie).
In her present day life, Vera is still getting over Charlie's death even though it's been a few months. She's angry with him for throwing away their friendship toward the end of his life, and wracked by guilt because she knows that he didn't burn down the pet store and that she should do what she can to clear his name.
On top of being a high school senior, Vera is working full-time delivering pizzas. She's also a closet alcoholic, and gets in trouble with her dad when he finds out that she got drunk and made out with her twenty-three-year-old coworker. She also keeps seeing ghosts of Charlie who tell her that she needs to tell the police what she knows.
In flashbacks, we learn more about what Vera has been through. She and Charlie have been best friends for as long as she can remember. They live next door to each other, and even though his dad regularly abuses his mother, Charlie is a nice kid who tries to stay away from his family troubles and who loves being outdoors with Vera. They even build a tree house together as kids and spend a lot of time up there together. Vera sleeps over once when she's still young enough, but after that her dad warns her against spending the night alone with a boy—even if it's Charlie.
Importantly, these two bond over their troubled home lives; Vera's dad is always there for her, but her mom leaves their family without warning when Vera is twelve years old.
We see the difficulties that Charlie and Vera face as they grow up. They're still best friends, but Charlie starts falling in with the wrong crowd—the kids that he hangs out with in detention. He also starts selling his used underwear to some perverted man in town, which scares Vera a little bit.
Vera, on the other hand, is still doing well in school and has a lot of work to do because her dad thinks that it's important for her to get a job. She volunteers at the pet shop because she loves animals, and she doesn't get along with Charlie's new friends, especially Jenny Flick, a girl who later on becomes Charlie's girlfriend.
After Charlie and Jenny start going out, Jenny starts telling him lies about Vera and he ends up hating Vera. They aren't friends at all toward the end of his life and he even throws dog feces at her and spreads the rumor that her mom is an ex-stripper. Whoever said that only teenage girls were mean and vicious? Charlie's as two-faced as any Regina George.
In a final flashback to before Charlie died, we see that on the night that Charlie died, he went to Vera and told her that she had to protect him because Jenny was going to burn down the pet shop and kill him. Vera tells him that it's not her problem; she thinks he's just being dramatic.
Vera decides to go to the pet shop to meet up with Charlie because he asks her to, but when she gets there, Jenny Flick is in the process of burning the place down and Charlie is nowhere to be found. Vera leaves, angry that Charlie didn't meet her, but the next day she finds out that Charlie has died and that everyone blames him for the pet shop fire.
In the present day, Vera starts repairing her relationship with her father by going to therapy with him and being more open about how her mother's absence has affected them both.
She decides that it's time to clear Charlie's name and goes to the Master Oak—the tree where he built his tree house. There she finds notes that he left for her concerning the events leading up to his death. Apparently Jenny coerced him into having sex on video for the perverted guy in exchange for money, and when Charlie decided that he didn't want to keep doing it, Jenny broke up with him—threatening to burn down the pet store and kill him.
With her dad by her side, Vera goes to the police and gives them all the proof she has. Then she and her dad go on a road trip together, because it's time for them to both let go and enjoy their lives.