Willow Clarke has newly turned 18. Straight A student, good girl, she's pretty much planned her whole life out down to the smallest of details, with dreams of going to college and becoming a hard working lawyer fighting for justice. Her focuses are on that and supporting her single mother, Elena, whose been her best friend her whole life. Jace Quinn, on the other hand, is 18 year old football captain. He seems to have it all. He's a rule breaker and the world lets him get away with it, because look at him. Guys want to be him and girls want to be with him. Underneath the surface, Jace struggles with anxiety, insomnia, and the grief of his mother's death. His widowed father, Jack, is out of touch and doesn't know how to connect with his son other than pushing for big college scholarships. What happens when their single parents meet and hit it off at a parent-teacher night? Their worlds are turned upside down when Willow's mom and Jace's dad become engaged. Thus throwing the two teenagers into a new life as step siblings. Will they become the perfect family their parents want them to be or will Jace introduce Willow to a whole new world of forbidden desires and choices? **There is no blood relation between the two main characters, nor were they raised together. They have completely different sets of parents. WattPad, please don't remove this. I have so many things planned for this story.**

BOOK 1 in the Drowning/Bully Standalone Series. WARNING: This book contains intense bullying, explicit scenes, triggering language, violence, and psychological content. I told Caden to cancel his stupid party. He told me, with that infuriating smirk, "Why? Planning to be my snack tonight?" Caden has made my life hell for four years, ever since our parents got married. He's gorgeous, arrogant, and the kind of boy Stanford girls trip over themselves for. Me? I'm the only one who sees right through him. He's a blatant bully, the devil who turned me into a surreptitious one. And now we're stuck sharing the same off-campus apartment for our entire freshman year. Living together means new rules, no boundaries... and a tension I never expected. The closer we get, the harder it becomes to remember why we ever hated each other in the first place- and nothing threatens our pride more than that. *** Step into an adventure of passion, forgiveness, and second chances. This is Caden and Madison's story.