//Please note this story is under heavy construction! Read at your own risk.// If you look for perfection, you'll never be content. ~Leo Tolstoy . . . . . . . A flower is to be always beautiful lest it is cast away. A flower is to be innocent and pure. Delicate in nature, ever to bring squinting smiles to those around. A flower is perfect. Always perfect. She was the perfect embodiment of a flower. Her name, Iris. A thorn is sharp like a knight's blade. It inflicts pain and draws blood if one dares to get close. A thorn protects a flower from the wickedness of the world. A thorn is attached to the king, ever guarding. He was the perfect embodiment of a thorn. His name, Luca. She was an iris in no need of a thorn and he was a thorn in no need of a delicate iris. Thrust together by an arranged marriage, the unlikely pair, the thorn, and the flower must now find a way to co-inhabit in the same garden. Bracing the strength of the winter, will their love and companionship last for the spring season or will the cold betrayal of a parasitic orchid, the overflowing herbicide of lies and the perfect perfection of the Iris trample the delicate budding bloom of their affairs of the heart?

Throughout her years in high school, Maggie Carter could've successfully avoided every toxic aspect that surrounded Henderson High, down to the teachers and most especially the students. So close to leaving the wreckage that is her past that kept haunting her and to finally graduate without trouble getting in the way, she was ready to walk away from her high-school experience with a clean image. But trouble doesn't always come in the form of circumstances but instead people. Enters Evan Williams, the notorious socialite of Henderson High who tarnishes her last remaining days in senior year by flipping her entire world upside down. For better and for worse. As he then brings hell into her world by disrupting the normalcy of what her high-school life used to be, having the perfect boyfriend and the perfect group of friends, through an arrangement she just knows she'll never be able to escape no matter how hard she tries.

Ella is falling apart trying to live a "perfect" high school life. Then she meets Ren, who can see past her scars. Suddenly perfection isn't her only option. ***** Ella Volkov is a gifted music student, but she's depressed and starting to crack under the pressure of high school. Her overbearing father won't even let her choose what instrument she plays. Then she finds herself alone at a party with Ren, her best friend's crush. She'd always thought he was rude, but after that night he's all Ella can think about. Now she's trapped. If Ella dates Ren, it will ruin her friendship with Jenny. But if she stays true to Jenny, she's losing the one person who can see past her scars. It's up to Ella to decide if she will forge her own path, or stay in the "perfect" box designed for her... Content and/or Trigger Warning: depression, anxiety, self-harm, violence, sexual assault. [[word count: 50,000-100,000 words]]

I woke up with no name, no past, and shadows stalking my every step. I wandered into a tiny coffee shop hoping for answers, but all I found were strangers staring at me like I was a problem they weren't prepared to deal with. The more I tried to piece myself together, the more I wondered if I belonged in an asylum instead-especially when the dark, faceless figures following me refused to disappear. It's hard enough not knowing who or where I am. It's worse realizing everyone I meet is hiding something. And the one person who unsettles me most? A curly-haired boy named Sawyer, who acts like he's keeping the biggest secret of all.