The girl who died. That's always what I'm known as now. I'm invisible, a ghost. Unable to leave this world. When you were the most popular girl in school, it's hard to be ignored. People miss me, but not as much as I wanted them to. Only my closest friends and family were sad. My locker was decorated with millions of flowers and goodbyes, but my ex best friend Carly told my other friends that she was glad I was gone. To my horror, they all laughed. My boyfriend Josh cried at my funeral, but then he got over it and started dating someone else, the girl he knew I hated. Some people laughed at my funeral. When I was alive, I used to tease a lot of them. I guess I got away with it because I was popular. But now they had the guts to say what they really thought, and it broke my heart.
People always used to say to me that popularity has its price. Now that I'm six feet under, I think I finally get what they meant.
-- Maddy Thomas
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Maddy was the girl everyone envied, the girl everyone wanted to be. But lots of people hated her, too. They hated her because she was cruel, using her popularity for evil. Now that she was gone, Olive Jennings, the school outcast, could finally breathe again. Maddy always used to tease her, but now she was free. Or so Olive thinks...
Turns out, Olive is the only one who can help Maddy cross over into Heaven. To do this, she has to help Maddy become a nicer person again. Olive would rather swallow glass -- after all, why would she help the ghost of someone that tormented her for so long? But Maddy offers the wallflower a deal -- if Maddy gets into Heaven, Olive becomes popular. But what happens when the two polar opposites --one dead, one not -- slowly become to realize they might actually be turning into good friends?
Ella is falling apart trying to live a "perfect" high school life. Then she meets Ren, who can see past her scars. Suddenly perfection isn't her only option.
*****
Ella Volkov is a gifted music student, but she's depressed and starting to crack under the pressure of high school. Her overbearing father won't even let her choose what instrument she plays. Then she finds herself alone at a party with Ren, her best friend's crush. She'd always thought he was rude, but after that night he's all Ella can think about. Now she's trapped. If Ella dates Ren, it will ruin her friendship with Jenny. But if she stays true to Jenny, she's losing the one person who can see past her scars. It's up to Ella to decide if she will forge her own path, or stay in the "perfect" box designed for her...
Content and/or Trigger Warning: depression, anxiety, self-harm, violence, sexual assault.
[[word count: 50,000-100,000 words]]