noahnightshade
At Growing Boys' Charter Academy, confession is ritual, silence is sacred, and love is a risk no boy is supposed to take.
Riley Koa arrives with a duffel bag, two bruises, and a name whispered wrong. Marked as "The Quiet One," he sketches thighs in the margins of worksheets and writes letters he'll never send-especially to his brother, Bailey, who was taken from him at the last foster home.
When an anonymous message from "Lunchbox22" appears on his screen, Riley's world begins to unravel in whispers and cinnamon. As the connection deepens-with secrets passed in gum wrappers, touches beneath stage lights, and poems folded into gym shorts-Riley finds himself torn between Cove, the boy who kissed him into poetry, and Brady, the rival who kisses like confession.
But at GBCA, love is forbidden, masculinity is a weapon, and the line between sacred and sinful is razor-thin. Under faculty eyes and chapel walls, Riley must decide: will he protect his heart-or let it burn?
Told in lyrical prose, poetic fragments, and unsent letters, GBCA is a haunting, tender, and fiercely defiant story of queer boyhood, religious repression, and the kind of love that dares to say yes even when silence says no.