breathing 12

Madeline Sullivan is sixteen when her world collapses.
After her mother's death, she leaves Clonakilty, Cork, and moves to the small town of Ballylaggin with a father who loves her but keeps losing himself to addiction. Raised in a home shaped by grief, silence, and instability, Madeline learns early how to survive on her own-closed off, emotionally distant, and hollowed out by things she's never learned how to name.
Her mind has always been loud. Anxiety clings to her, depression settles in her bones, and trust feels like a risk she can't afford. Music becomes her only escape-the one place where she can breathe, where the world softens enough to endure.
After an abusive relationship at a young age, Madeline's fear of men hardens into something immovable. She convinces herself that solitude is safer. That love is something other people get to have.
But Ballylaggin has a way of disrupting the quiet walls she's built.
When Patrick Feely-the town's reserved, soft-spoken rugby star-takes an interest in her, Madeline is forced to confront the one thing she's avoided her whole life: connection.
And sometimes, the most dangerous thing isn't falling apart-
it's letting someone see the pieces.