The Space Between Us

Eighteen-year-old Olivia Baldwin is drowning. Trapped in a life that looks perfect from the outside, she's suffocating under the weight of expectations, loneliness, and the ghosts she refuses to name; she moves through her final year of high school guarded, unsteady, with a smile that never quite reaches her eyes. She's a master of detachment-until she isn't. Until Nate. Their connection is slow-burning, toxic in ways neither of them knows how to fix, but real in a way that keeps them revolving around each other, no matter how much it hurts. Between fleeting moments of happiness and unspoken wounds, Olivia must decide if she's capable of saving herself.

His hands are warm, rough fingertips brushing the edge of her jaw, tilting her face up, forcing her to look at him. "You always do this," Nate murmurs, voice low, like a secret meant only for her.

Her breath stutters. "Do what?"

"Look at me like you hate me," he says, his mouth a whisper from hers. "When I know you don't."

He exhales sharply. His hand moves to her jaw, tilting her chin up, and for a second, they just breathe the same air. His mouth is inches from hers, close enough that she can taste the tension between them.

She exhales sharply, pulse thrumming in her throat. "Maybe I do."

His lips echo against her skin, just enough to make her shiver. "Liar."