CeceAttlee
It's 1983, and Celia Harris has spent all thirteen years of her life trying to make it through the day, feeling like a burden - the hand-me-down clothes, the forced haircuts that made her look like a boy, a mother who kept her on the tightest of reins. To say her life was hard was an understatement.
Then her father dies, and everything shifts at once. Her mother goes to work. Money appears from somewhere no one will name. And Celia is pulled out of the only life she's known into a world of old family wealth, quiet secrets, and half-truths about who she really is and where she came from.
But safety comes with its own questions. Why did her father really die? Who's been paying for everything all these years? And why does everyone seem to know more about her family than she does?
All Celia ever wanted was to grow her hair out, choose her own clothes, and finally live for herself. What she gets is the truth - one buried secret at a time.
A coming-of-age story set in the 1980s: surviving abuse, uncovering family lies, and slowly learning to trust. Peppered with clean, slow-burn first love.
***Content warning: this story depicts child abuse.***