Stay ~ Applewood Series #1

author's note

Hi everyone! Long time no see, huh. I just want to say I'm sorry for the lack of stories for the past two years. 2020 and 20201 have been hard years for me. For reasons I'm not going to go into detail about, it has been difficult to be at home during the pandemic. I love my family, but sometimes they are extremely stressful to be around.

Therefore, it was hard for me to find the mental space for creativity when all my head could think about was what is going to happen next, both at home or at school or even the latest story on the news.

But I'm hoping to start up again, and this is my attempt at another series of stories. Stay is going to be the first novel in the Applewood series, a standalone romance series that follows connected residents of a small town in the fictitious town of Applewood, Massachusetts.

I hope you like it, it is a lot longer than all my other stories so I hope you don't mind. I got a little carried away with this one haha.

Before we start there are a few things I want my readers to keep in mind with his particular book.

1. This is a fictitious story. Though there will be some real life celebrities being named in this story, the characters are all made up and any resemblance to a person or event is pure coincidence.

2. This story will have mentions of suicide, mentions of miscarriage (not of any of the main characters though), instances of self doubt, a skittish main girl, sexually mature scenes and mentions of an abusive relationship. This is a final trigger warning (although there will be chapter trigger warnings at the end of this note) for anyone who finds these things remotely disturbing or unsupportive to their own healing journey. With this being said I'm not going to tell you what to and not to consume as every person has their own free will. You know yourself best, and as the saying goes, better safe than sorry. Be smart ya'll.

3. Although there are sexual themes, the sexual journey of this couple is very slow. Don't be thinking there is going to be a ton of sex throughout the book (that is for another couple, hehe). Although I think a healthy sex life can add to a relationship, for me intimacy and mutual care and trust come first. Being all over each other is not the only way to show love and compassion for your significant other.

4. This is a first draft, and if you have read any of my other stories you will know that all of them are first drafts and I very rarely go back to edit, if ever. It only happens if I catch an error within the first hour of publishing that I didn't notice during the final readthrough. So everything is unedited which means there may be punctuation, grammar or spelling errors. They are for sure annoying at times, but something that I do when I notice these kinds of errors in Wattpad books is one, use my own voice in my head for diction and two, use contexts cues for spelling.

5. The introduction chapter is just for character inspiration. These pictures are what I used to describe the characters throughout the story. You don't have to look at it if you prefer to to create an image of the person in your head.

Trigger Warnings:

Mention of suicide: Chap. 13

Mention of sexual assault: Chap 16 and 25

Descriptions of mature sexual situations: Chap. 19, 23, 29 and 31

So with all the disclaimers out of the way, I hope you enjoy the read.

Halei :)