I Run Away | nac

To the rest of Millbury High, Adrienne "Andie" Bauer is a ghost. She's the quiet rebel who skips class, smokes clove cigarettes while reading classic literature, and disappears to college parties just to feel untethered from her reality. No one sees the fractures beneath her cold, fiercely independent armor, and that's exactly how she wants it. Keeping people out is the only way to keep them safe-including her best friend, Sam.

Samuel Palmer is everything Andie isn't: outgoing, genuine, and a star varsity hockey player with a promising future. But since they were five years old, Sam has been the only one capable of reading between Andie's lines. He's spent nearly a lifetime trying to decode her silence. He also carries a secret of his own-he's been hopelessly in love with her for years, a truth he suppresses to keep from losing the best friend he's ever had.

When Andie dated Sam's estranged, volatile half-brother, Ryan, junior year, it started to shatter an unspoken balance between them. When Ryan is back in town, he brings a suffocating shadow and a history of dark secrets that Andie has desperately tried to lock away.

As the pressure mounts and the walls Andie built begin to crumble, she is forced to decide how much she's willing to sacrifice to protect the people she loves. And Sam must figure out how to save the girl who refuses to ever ask for help.