❝If growing up means working a nine to five job every day and going to the bar on the weekends for fun, then I don't want to grow up. I'd rather stay here forever with you, instead.❞
Everything that Eyla had known the last eighteen years of her life was coming to an end: high school, the small little coastal town in which she lived in, and everyone she'd met along the way. It was time for her to grow up and move on, leaving everything else behind, like her memories, her family, and her best friend, Dakota.
Eyla and Dakota have known each other for as long as they can remember, and they confided in each other for just about anything: relationship advice, school, and he was a shoulder to cry on during her breakups and family issues while she was there to merely listen to him vent. But now, all of that was abruptly coming to an end.
Now that high school was over and they were both going off to college in the summer, they only had three more months to spend together before they both start new chapters in their lives without each other. And in the last three months that they're both together, they're determined to make it the most memorable summer that either of them has ever had, promising themselves to do all of the things they've dreamed about doing since they were little.
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.
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