After late-night studying, quiz bees, sports competitions, and an unhealthy amount of coffee daily, all the stress and the worry she's been through day to day finally paid off. Columbia-bound Carmen Buenavidez counted the days, she awaited for summer to come.
Only in the summer did Carmen live her life to the fullest. Back in Queensland-her hometown, academics and getting accepted into top colleges were her only focus. In San Diego, California, she was the life of the party... a bright ray of sunshine.
That summer-the summer of '22... summer wasn't the only thing that was welcomed back into her life. After years of no such reply, her first love was seen at their usual meet-up spot. To Carmen, this was a new face... this was someone new, someone, she had never met.
Marco Reyes came to fill the blank spaces of their story; he was determined to continue the chapters he left untold. But there was something about those years of his absence that he abandoned in the dark.
To fix a friendship that was now vague and to take up the pages he left empty, Carmen and Marco will complete their unfulfilled list of the summers before.
But by doing so, will it fix things between them? Or will it make it worse?
As Claire aims to leave her oppressive stepfamily behind, she befriends Zion. Will he be her ticket to freedom or a distraction in achieving her dreams?
*****
Claire Olsen has had a crush on Zion Petrakis since the first time she laid eyes on him, but he never noticed, instead only having eyes on the school's it girl, Maddie Jennings. Knowing she couldn't compete with Maddie, Claire hid her feelings for Zion, satisfied with admiring him from afar. However, when a series of events led Claire closer to Zion, her feelings for him grew from infatuation to love. And despite fighting hard to keep her feelings contained by distancing herself from Zion, he was determined to show her that he's earned a spot in her life.
[[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]