Cole_not_a_ninja
Jesse has spent his life learning how to disappear-into the background, into someone else's arms, into the lies he tells himself to keep breathing. He knows how to take a punch, how to swallow down the sting of old wounds, how to pretend he doesn't care when the people he loves slip through his fingers like smoke.
Told through a series of interconnected short stories, Splinters of a Boy follows Jesse as he navigates the ghosts of his childhood, the weight of a home that never felt safe, and the quiet ache of wanting more than what the world has given him. From Christmas Eve on a frozen street to the tangled, unspoken lines between love and self-destruction, Jesse's story is one of survival-of learning what to hold onto and what to finally let go.
Raw, poetic, and unflinching, this is a book about the wounds we carry, the people we run to, and the small, fleeting moments where we let ourselves believe we deserve something better.