SUBSTANCE [h.s]

Celia Cross doesn't talk much. Not because she doesn't have anything to say - but because too many people stopped listening a long time ago.

Her mum's gone, her dad's lost somewhere in the haze of another high, and now she's starting over in a new town with her gran - a house that smells like lavender and memories. She tells herself she's fine. Invisible is fine.

But when the school's golden boy - Harry Styles - crashes hard unintentionally from a night he can't remember, it's Celia who finds him. And for the first time, someone sees her. Not the quiet new girl, not the girl with a broken past - but the one who pulled him back when he was too far gone.

Celia Cross has spent her whole life cleaning up other people's messes. She never expected to become someone's reason to change.

-

Harry Styles has everything, rich parents, a perfect life - or that's what everyone says.
Captain of the football team. Perfect smile. The kind of charm that gets him out of trouble before he even finishes causing it.

But beneath the noise, Harry's running on empty.

Between the parties, the pressure, and the expectations that aren't really his, he's been losing pieces of himself one night at a time. Until the night everything stops - and Celia, the quiet girl no one notices, finds him before it's too late.

She's nothing like the world he's built around himself. She doesn't care about popularity or pretending. She just looks at him like she actually sees him - and for the first time, Harry's not sure who he's supposed to be anymore.

Because maybe the one girl he's ignored is the only one who could save him.

//

Contains strong language, sexual content, drug and alcohol misuse.