erins459
Alex Carter learned how to survive before she learned how to live.
Sixteen, working shifts at a small café before school, paying rent no one knows she covers, and going home each night to a mother who's more ghost than parent - Alex keeps her world small, quiet, and controlled. Feelings get buried. People don't stay. And she stopped expecting them to.
Until the day danger walks through the café door... and her past walks into her classroom.
Adian was her best friend once - the kind who knew her secrets, her fears, her real laugh. Then he disappeared when her life fell apart. No explanation. No goodbye. Now he's back, sitting a few desks away like nothing happened, looking at her like he remembers everything.
She doesn't.
Or at least, she pretends she doesn't.
Between long school days, late-night shifts, a home that doesn't feel like one, and three brothers who think she's stronger than she is, Alex is barely holding it together. And when trouble from that café incident starts following her outside of work, the walls she built to survive might not be enough anymore.
Because the hardest part of fighting isn't learning how to throw a punch.
It's learning how to let someone stand beside you.