About

Abby is a freshman at Lincoln High, sixteen and striking in a way that turns heads in the hallway—long dark hair, sharp features, and a figure that already sets her apart from most of the girls her age. Yet popularity has never followed her looks. She sits alone at lunch more often than not, ignored by the cliques that form so quickly in the first weeks of high school. The popular girls size her up and look away; the boys stare but rarely approach. None of it shakes her. Abby moves through the crowded corridors with quiet certainty, chin up, backpack slung over one shoulder. She knows who she is. She doesn’t need the approval of people who only care about status. What she does want, with a clear and steady intensity, is something real: someone who sees past the surface, who matches her confidence, and who is willing to meet her where she stands. She is not waiting to be chosen. She is looking. Between classes, in the library after school, and in the quiet moments between the noise of freshman year, Abby keeps her eyes open for the person who might finally close the distance between being noticed and being known.