Avery Turner, a perfectionist with a double life, and Kyran Drake, a charismatic boy with secrets, find their fates intertwined when their secrets threaten to unravel their dreams-will they overcome their differences to protect their futures, or wil...
"Kyran, dinner's ready," my mom calls as I finish up a program on my laptop. Learning Java hasn't been easy, compared to the others anyway. But, I am getting the hang of it and that's all I can hope for.
"Five minutes!" I shout, packing away my stuff and cleaning up everything around my bed. I have this fucked up habit of throwing my stuff around the room and not picking them up after. But, I'm trying to evolve into a decent human being. We all have to start somewhere.
I shove my laptop into my bed and start picking up stray clothes and notebooks, tossing them into a pile by my desk. The floor clears up quickly, but I feel the nagging feeling that I'm missing something. Learning to code is hard, but keeping my room from looking like a war zone and talking to Avery is so much harder.
"Kyran!" my mom calls again, more insistent this time.
"Coming!" I yell back, giving the room one last glance before heading downstairs.
As I make my way to the kitchen, garlic fills the air—some kind of sauce, which is classic Mom. She's standing by the stove, focused, with her sleeves rolled up and an apron tied around her waist. And not just that, but Will is helping her do it too. There's something comforting seeing the two of them like this, even if I'm too busy to notice it most days.
"Finally," she says, glancing at me with a smile. "Thought I'd have to come up there and drag you down myself."
Yashna is already sitting at the dinner table, scrolling mindlessly through her phone. She looks up once, gives me a wayward glance and goes back to her phone and I can tell immediately that she's angry with me.
"Yash, everything alright?" I ask, sitting down opposite her.
She looks up, a glare replacing her indifferent expression from earlier. "What do you think, Kyran?" she asks, lowering her voice to a whisper.
"I thought you liked Avery."
Yashna blinks and takes a deep breath before continuing. "Have you ever felt that she didn't belong around us?"
"What?" I ask, staring at her. "What do you mean, didn't belong around us?"
She doesn't respond right away, her fingers nervously tapping against her phone. She looks at me with a mix of frustration and worry, like she's trying to get me to understand something she's figured out already.
"Kyran," she begins slowly, glancing toward Mom and Will, who are still busy by the stove. "I'm just saying...maybe Avery doesn't quite get us. She's...I don't know, different."
