Almost Was

Allison Monroe thought she understood love. In high school, it looked like Cooper Hayes-a senior lacrosse player with a grin that could tilt the world. What started as friendship slipped into something more, a talking stage stitched together by football games, playlists, and dreams of Brown University. They fit like puzzle pieces, but before the picture could ever be whole, they drifted apart.
At Brown, fate brought them back together. Allison had grown into her own life-journalist, leader, dreamer-yet every crowded party and quiet glance pulled her back into Cooper's orbit. Their connection was undeniable, but so were the obstacles: old wounds, unspoken words, and Kelsey, the girl who always seemed to come first. Caught between the gentleness he taught her and the ache of never being his first choice, Allison learned that love is not always about endings-it's about the echoes left behind.
A bittersweet coming-of-age story about heartbreak and resilience, about what it means to love someone you can't quite have, and how to choose yourself even when your heart wants to stay. Intimate, raw, and achingly relatable, it asks the question: what do we do with the love that lingers?Almost