Where It All Started

Poppy Martin used to have a place she fit. Friends she trusted. A life that made sense.
Now, at sixteen, it feels like the world keeps moving without her
and she's stuck behind, drowning quietly in the spaces no one notices.

She doesn't talk about the way food has become a silent war.
She doesn't talk about the father who left when she was two, and suddenly wants back in.
She doesn't talk about the gnawing loneliness that feels too heavy to carry.

And she definitely doesn't talk about James Quinn
her brother's best friend, the boy who's supposed to be trouble,
who sees through her walls even when she doesn't want him to.

James has his own ghosts.
A mother who drinks too much.
Two little sisters he's been raising on his own.
A life built on broken promises and grief too big for his fists to hold.

When a rainstorm and a fractured friendship leave Poppy stranded,
James becomes the last person she expects to notice, and the only one who stays.

In the slow unfurling of stormy days and sleepless nights,
Poppy and James find something tangled, aching, and real,
something that could break them open,
or finally stitch them back together.