About

Charlotte has never been particularly fond of people. She’s quiet, guarded, and keeps almost everyone at arm’s length. She hates school, teenagers, crowds, and practically everything about the world she’s been forced to grow up in. Her parents are cruel, abusive, and emotionally absent, leaving her to raise herself in a home that has never felt like one. She’s learned to keep her feelings buried, her mouth shut, and her heart protected. She’s convinced she’s unlovable, that happiness is something other people get to experience, and that she’ll never have the life she secretly dreams of. Except there’s Sadie. Sadie has been her best friend since first grade. Her person. Her safe place. The one exception to every rule Charlotte has ever made about people. They’re inseparable, two lonely girls finding comfort in each other and making a little world of their own. They dance barefoot in empty streets at night, share stolen moments of laughter, drink whatever random beers they can get their hands on, tickle each other until they can’t breathe, cry on each other’s shoulders, and scream at the sky when life becomes too much. They do everything together, and somehow, the simplest moments with Sadie become Charlotte’s favorite memories. But Charlotte has a secret. She’s hopelessly, painfully in love with her best friend. And it’s not something she’s ever allowed herself to say aloud. Growing up, she was taught that a girl loving another girl was something shameful, something deserving of punishment. So she learned to hide it. She hides the way her heart races when Sadie smiles, the jealousy she swallows, the way she memorizes every little detail about her, and the tears she cries when she thinks about never being loved by Sadie in quite the same way. Charlotte is convinced Sadie could never love her back. Yet sometimes Sadie looks at her a little too long, holds her a little too close, or says something that makes Charlotte wonder if she’s been wrong all along. Sadie makes Charlotte feel like there’s a reason to stay. When they’re together, the world doesn’t seem quite so cruel. For a few hours, Charlotte forgets the things waiting for her at home. But once she walks through that front door, she’s alone with everything she’s spent the day trying to escape. The silence, the hurt, the loneliness, and the belief that she’ll never know what it feels like to be genuinely loved or to finally have peace. Charlotte has spent her entire life believing she’s destined to be unhappy. She just hasn’t considered that maybe, for once, something good could happen to her. And maybe that something has been standing beside her since the first grade.