[2021 Wattys Shortlist]
Monica Kelly returns to her hometown years after abandoning it, only to bump into and befriend Liam Belkin-who, despite his walls and issues, cannot help but draw himself closer to someone he can't have.
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After being screwed over too many times, Monica Kelly ran from her hometown as soon as she graduated high school, leaving her brother and former life behind. But it isn't until four years later when she returns, and in need of money and a distraction, she gets a job at the local diner. She swears this isn't a forever thing-when the summer is done, she'll go get her masters and become somebody, far away from the people who screwed her over.
But when Liam Belkin, the towns residential brooding man who hides behind a baseball cap, steps into the diner every night, she finds herself breaking down her one rule: don't get close to anyone. And although he doesn't talk, or even smile for that matter, he finds himself doing so every time Monica is around.
But when two people with broken pasts come together, there's no telling if two wrongs can make a right-especially when betrayal is right around the corner.
Ellie Jenkins is struggling to write a high school TV show, so her boss gives her an ultimatum: go to her ten year reunion or lose her big break forever..
*****
Ellie Jenkins definitely didn't peak in high school. She was an outsider, an invisible girl with a desperate crush on Mark Wright, a guy who hardly knew her name. But ten years later, she's living in Los Angeles, trying to write a hit show about cool high school kids, when an invitation for her high school reunion arrives. She doesn't want to go, but her writing has been suffering and her boss makes her an ultimatum: go to this reunion or lose her big break forever. Her boss even gives her a list of challenges to complete! Ellie takes the bait and returns to the school determined to find friends, fun and to prove to Mark Wright, once and for all, that Ellie is cool now.
[[2018 WATTY AWARD WINNER: THE HIDDEN GEMS!!!!!!!]]
[[A TOP WATTPAD PICK: FEATURED IN MILLENNIALS & MAYHEM]]
[[word count: 70,000-80,000 words]]