✎ Scene Partner (18+)

"You wanna kiss me, don't you, Emma? You wanna know what it feels like to touch me. To be touched by someone who knows what they're doing - by someone who won't hurt you. Well, I can do that. All you have to do is admit that you want it."

✿˖˚ ༘⋆ 𐙚 ̊.

At nineteen, 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙖 𝙈𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙡𝙞𝙣 returns to her sleepy hometown in shame, the bright future she once chased now in ruins. College was supposed to be her escape, her fresh start - but instead, it chewed her up and spat her out.

All her parents know is that she was expelled.

They don't know the truth: that Bria was betrayed in the worst way. A victim of revenge porn that outed her as a lesbian, she's drowning in silence and fury, barely holding herself together behind a wall of sarcasm and smirks.

Desperate to rebuild her life - or at least give the appearance of trying - Bria reluctantly agrees to her therapist's suggestion: join a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet. Playing make-believe feels stupid at first, but the stage offers Bria a fragile sanctuary... until whispers start. Someone knows what happened. And secrets don't stay buried long in small towns.

Just when Bria's progress teeters on collapse, an unexpected ally emerges:

𝙀𝙢𝙢𝙖 𝙍𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧, her former high school rival, now the local church's first female youth pastor. But Emma is nothing like the holier-than-thou girl Bria remembers.

She's warm, drawn to her, and hiding some sort of dark heartbreak of her own.