girlygirlz
Eleanor, 19, is living on borrowed time.
She's continuing her studies not out of passion, but more out of survival instinct. Not because she dreams of a brilliant career, but because the idea of failing-and having to go back home-makes her sick.
Home is a house full of heavy silences, unspoken blame, and above all, a mother consumed by addiction. Their relationship is an emotional minefield. Though physically distant, Eleanor is never truly free. And every call, every message from her mother threatens to pull her back into the chaos she's desperate to escape.
At college, she tries to hang on.
Her only support is Wallace, her best friend since middle school. Always there. Tall, protective, destined for a pro career in basketball. Wallace is steady, radiant-the complete opposite of the world Eleanor comes from. He helps her stay afloat. Keeps her from drowning.
Until one day, a figure appears in a campus hallway-and everything shifts.
Danny Shepard.
The name alone freezes her in place. It takes Eleanor a moment to recognize him: the scrawny, furious boy she knew at sixteen has become a man. Calmer. Darker. More... unreadable.
After assaulting his sports coach, Danny was sentenced to juvenile detention and vanished for four years. On his return, he was denied entry into the third year of med school. He enrolled elsewhere, at the bottom rung of the university ladder.
Where Eleanor studies.
And he doesn't recognize her.
She, on the other hand, never forgot.
The bond they shared-fragile and secret, woven during adolescence through stolen glances and charged silences-left a mark. But Danny seems to have erased her.
Why? Has he truly forgotten? Or has he buried that part of his life?
Eleanor senses that behind the cold mask, there's a war raging. Repressed memories. A guilt that never properly healed.