Aurora Kensington has spent years trying to silence the voice in her head-the one that sounds too much like Briar Holloway. The girl who was once her best friend. The girl who came out to her. The girl she pushed away. Now eighteen, Aurora is desperate to prove she's everything she's supposed to be: a good daughter, a devoted Catholic, normal. But no matter how hard she prays, no matter how many rules she follows, she can't shake the feeling that something inside her is broken. And when she sees the lights on in the Holloway house for the first time in years, something deep in her chest stirs. She doesn't know Briar is back. Not until she turns around at a party and finds her standing there. Briar never planned to return to Chapelwood, but with her family drowning in debt and her grandmother's health failing, she had no choice. She tells herself she doesn't care about Aurora anymore-that she only came to this party because she thought it'd be funny. But the second their eyes meet, the past slams into her like a tremor. Old wounds. Old feelings. Ones that never truly faded. Because "love" (if you can call it that) like theirs doesn't disappear. It fractures. It festers. It trembles under the weight of everything unsaid. And if they're not careful, it might just swallow them whole. But none of it truly matters anyway. Not unless Aurora is willing to face the truth about herself. A story about love, sin, and the thin line between devotion and obsession.

"you always call me pretty and it makes me angry because i like when you call me pretty, but you shouldn't be calling me pretty, and i think there's a part of you that knows you shouldn't" "i'm sorry" "it's okay-" "no I mean i'm sorry you feel that way, if i see something pretty, or see something that i like, i'm going to acknowledge that, because beautiful things deserve to know they're beautiful, i couldn't care less what gender you are, you're fucking stunning, and i hope there's a part of you that knows i'm right" [a story in which an egocentric irish boy named jack always thought he was straight until this sanguine and facetious boy from his schools basketball team suddenly obtained the confidence to tell him he was really pretty]