Ghost of You

Damien Hale has one goal: survive senior year, earn a football scholarship, and get far enough away that his abusive father can never touch him again. Then he meets Everette Greene-a beautiful, sharp-tongued boy made of sunshine, painted nails, and everything Damien has spent his life being forced to hate.

What begins as hostility slowly becomes something neither of them is prepared for, while the people around them hide horrors of their own behind jokes, silence, anger, and perfect smiles. In a town full of secrets, six broken teenagers will learn that sometimes the people who save you are just as lost as you are.

Everette Greene is the kind of boy everyone remembers for his smile.

He is bright, affectionate, dramatic, impossible to ignore, and always the first person trying to make somebody else laugh when the room gets too heavy. With his shaggy blond hair, painted nails, sharp mouth, and almost reckless kindness, Everette has spent years making himself into something warm enough for other people to stand beside.

What no one really sees is how exhausted he is.

Behind the jokes is a boy carrying more fear than he knows what to do with. His mother is sick. His childhood left wounds he still doesn't know how to name without choking on them. His mind can turn cruel without warning, convincing him that he is too needy, too damaged, too difficult to keep loving. So he keeps smiling. Keeps helping. Keeps showing up for everyone else, even when he is quietly falling apart.

Everette has survived by making pain look beautiful.

The problem is, survival is starting to cost him more than he has left to give.

Ghost of You is a dark, devastating slow-burn about abuse, grief, found family, first love, and what happens when surviving is no longer enough.