Counting What Hurts

Karin counts. Steps to the door. Minutes until the bus. Nights since her mother died. It's how she keeps herself in one piece - has been since she was twelve, since the first time Hark called it love.
She's seventeen now. Her father works two jobs and barely sees her. Her best friend doesn't reply to texts. She takes the late shift at the gas station and saves for university - somewhere far, anywhere far. Hark is twenty-six and isn't done with her. He left her book on the bench by the bus stop. Open. On the page she didn't read.
Axi can't sit still.
He's seventeen. His sister Teri raises him with bandages and silence. He gets in fights he doesn't start. He owes five hundred euros he doesn't have. He thinks in the third person when things get bad - someone is sitting on the bed, that someone is me, technically. He doesn't know what he feels, but he notices the ceiling has a crack in it now, and he didn't notice before.
When Karin tries to compliment his backpack - they own the same book, the one with the silver lettering - he hears mockery and walks away.
It goes worse from there.
A dual-POV story about two seventeen-year-olds who can't get out of their own way long enough to be saved by each other - and a man from the past who isn't waiting forever.
📖 Light novel format - short chapters (1500-2000 words), alternating narration, slow burn, dry dark humor.
⚠️ Content Warnings: stalking and grooming (background threat from adult antagonist; the romantic leads are both 17 and the relationship contains no sexual content), physical violence, bullying, recreational drug use, references to past abuse, dissociation, parental absence, grief, strong language.