Of Smokes and Sunflowers

To the world, Belle is bold, witty, and a little chaotic-the kind of person who lights up a room with her energy and laughs like nothing can touch her. But behind closed doors, it's different. At home, silence sits heavy. Her parents' marriage is on the verge of collapse, and Belle is caught in the quiet wreckage, doing her best to distract the world-and herself-with noise.

Knox, on the other hand, keeps things close. A business major with a hidden love for painting, he's built walls to protect himself from the mess his parents' divorce left behind. On the outside, he's steady and collected. Inside, he's still sorting through the pieces of what home used to be.

They meet in the tucked-away corner of a local bookstore-two strangers drawn to the same novel, the same quiet. What begins as an awkward conversation turns into a shared ritual of coffee, pages, and slowly peeling back the layers they hide from the world.

As their bond deepens, Belle and Knox begin to see through each other's masks. But love doesn't erase pain. Belle's home life continues to fracture, and the pressure to stay "together" on the outside grows unbearable. Knox, still bruised by the past, fears repeating it all over again. And yet, through heartbreak and healing, they find something worth holding on to.

Of Smokes and Sunflowers is a slow-burn college romance about love found in unlikely places-between shelves of forgotten stories, behind carefully built walls, and in the quiet moments where two broken people choose each other, again and again.